


whisper something holy

by curiositykilled



Series: whisper something holy [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Angel/Demon Relationship, Angels are Dicks, Apocalypse, Betrayal, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Don't Examine This Too Closely, Don't Have to Know Canon, F/M, Gen, Hell Trauma, Hurt/No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Minor Original Character(s), Morally Ambiguous Character, Multi, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Character, Other, Poor Life Choices, Prophets, Psychological Trauma, Really really slow burn, Redemption, Repressed Memories, Slow Burn, eventually, i did not expect that to be a tag, it takes a while, the good guys are shady af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-09 15:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 52,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3255791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiositykilled/pseuds/curiositykilled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every prophet has a guardian angel.  Desmond's just lucky enough to get a matched set.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_What's the difference between an angel and a demon?_

_Perspective._

* * *

 

 

                  “Desmond! Desmond, can you hear me? _Shit_.”

                  The house shuddered again, sending Bill lurching into the wall. Lightning flashed through the rattling windows, blinding him and then leaving him in darkness with spots dancing in front of his eyes.

                  He’d woken to this, to thunder raging outside while rain lashed at the windows like many-tongued whips. Another shock of lightning illuminated a picture frame teetering on its hook. He ducked, covering his head with his arms; the glass ricocheted, bouncing off the wall and nipping at his skin. _Oh god_ , _Desmond. Dear god, please, please – I can’t make it without him_. He didn’t expect an answer, but the prayers came of their own volition. _Please, please._

                  “Desmond!” he called again, pressing his hand against the wall for support and struggling towards his son’s bedroom.

                  There were only three more doors left, listing to and fro with the lurching of the house. He lunged towards the last door, barely catching the doorframe as the house gave another jerky shiver. The breath he’d finally caught froze and crystallized in his throat.

                  “Desmond?” he asked, voice breaking.

                  His son – his son who woke at the sound of a branch against the window, at waves on the distant shore, at nightmares at least twice a night – was asleep. His small frame was a dark lump under his racecar comforter, and in the shaky lighting, Bill couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.  _Not after Kate_ _. You can’t take him. You can’t you can’t you –_

                  “Fear not, for the Lord is with you.”

                  Bill flinched. His knees bent, weight shifting forward and eyes searching the room. A figure shifted in the shadows across from him, and his hand shot to the knife strapped to his ankle. It was too dark to make out features; the lightning had stopped for now, though the thunder rumbled on. The wards and sigils carved into the bones of the house were meant to prevent any intruders, mundane or supernatural, but the Devil wasn’t known for his lack of creativity. His hand scrabbled against his leg for the knife that was always there.

                  “Whoever the fuck you are, get out,” he growled. “I’m giving you one chance, but you even touch him, and I will kill you.”

                  There was a glint of silver in the darkness. _No, that’s –_ The serrated edge twirled up in the darkness, all the teeth outlined by black. Bill’s chest seized as it tipped down and vanished once more between inky black fingers. His own fist closed, tight and locked, as he stared down the dark stranger in the room. Glowing specks flickered like far-off stars, too small to make out constellations, but he couldn’t make out any more details.

                  “Desmond is safe,” it intoned. “He is in the hands of the Lord and none shall harm him.”

                  “What the hell are you talking about?” Bill demanded. “What are you?”

                  There was a pause, and a roll of thunder growled in the distance. Bill had met more than his share of strange beings in his thirty-seven years, both of the human and less-than types. He’d never seen one like this. It was as if there was a singularity in the corner of his son’s bedroom, taking all the darkness and wrapping it around and around itself.

                  “I am Altaïr,” it finally answered. “I am sent to guard The Word and ensure Desmond’s security.”

                  “The _W_ _ord_ , huh?” Bill started, pushing himself forward. “Bullshit.”

                  The moment his foot touched the floor of Desmond’s room, lightning burnt through the windows. Around the star-studded figure in the figure, great shadows stretched around the room’s walls. The edges were fuzzy, like the edges on feathers. _Angel. Angel of the Lord._

                  “Jesus,” he breathed.

                  He’d heard stories, tales of hunters who’d met the Host and fought by their side. He’d never believed them, of course. Who could and keep their sanity in his line of work?

                  “Your son will be safe,” the angel promised, still low and monotone. “I cannot promise the same for you.”

                  “What do you-” Bill asked, hair standing on end.

                  The house broke around him, crashing and cracking.  He was swept under, crushed and suffocated by the tide of concrete, rebar, and wood. The angel watched as his screams died away. As the rubble steadied, the thunder faded, and the broad black wings retreated from the red and white striped walls. The angel took a last look at the boy slumbering peacefully in his racecar bed and stepped away.

                  In the morning, a crowd would gather.

                  _A miracle_ , they’d whisper at the child’s room standing unscathed amongst the destruction.

                  _A tragedy_ , they’d sigh at the four-year-old orphan staring teary-eyed at his father’s grave.

                  _Thank God it wasn’t us_ , they’d think.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter One

                  The gravel chip bounced off the tip of Desmond’s sneaker, clattering through its neighbors to come to a clumsy rest. The six-year-old heaved a huffy sigh and scowled down at his foster sister.

                  “C’mon Lucy,” he urged. “I wanna’ do _something._ ”

                  “Mommy said t’wait here,” she retorted for the third time.

                  “But I’m _bored_ ,” he complained.

                  He’d already tried to convince her that they could nip away for just a few minutes to no avail. Lucy was adamant that her mother would somehow know, and after the incident with the chocolate pudding two weeks ago, Desmond wasn’t sure she was wrong. That didn’t, however, satisfy the itchy restlessness tickling under his skin.

                  Lucy puffed out her own sigh and turned slightly to scowl back at him. Desmond waited, unfazed. It was only her thinking look; if she was really angry, her cheeks would turn red. He knew.

                  “We can get ice cream,” she finally conceded, “but we gotta share. I promised Mommy we wouldn’t ‘spoil our ap’tites.’”

                  Beaming, Desmond stuck out a hand and helped haul her to her feet. They were off immediately. It was only three blocks to the dairy mart down the street, and they’d made the trip with Lucy’s parents several times over the past summer but only once on their own. Lucy’s mother hated letting them go places on their own, even though Desmond was already five and a half.

                  That was hardly enough to distract them from the upcoming class trip to the zoo, however.

                  “I’m gonna’ swim with the _sharks!_ ” Desmond declared, puffing out his skinny chest.

                  “Puh-lease,” Lucy scoffed. “Sharks’ll eat you up. I wanna’ see the snakes. Miz Gol’stein says they have _pythons._ ”

                  Desmond scowled and opened his mouth to reply, but a van slowed and rolled to a halt beside them. The passenger window rolled down to reveal a pale boy and his red-headed mother. The woman smiled with neat white teeth. The boy didn’t.

                  “Hey kiddos,” she called out the window. “You want a ride? We’re just headed over to the DQ.”

                  The pair hesitated and shared an uncertain look. They’d heard all the usual warnings of ‘stranger danger,’ but none had ever mentioned friendly moms with a sticker on the back window claiming ‘My child is an honors student at FHS.’

                  “Okay,” Lucy finally agreed.

                  The boy in the car’s eyes widened, and he gave a minute shake of his head. The woman beamed.

                  “Great, just let me-” she started, turning to open the back door.

                  “Leave.”

                  The man had to have been sitting on a bench somewhere, though Desmond hadn’t seen anyone when they were walking. He shivered in the brisk breeze that sprang up and twisted around to gawk at the newcomer. The man was tall, even taller than Lucy’s daddy, with dark skin and cold eyes, but Desmond felt…warm – safe – beside him.

                  “Sorry, who are you?” the woman asked.

                  Her smile was slipping slightly, something harder taking its place.

                  “Leave,” the man repeated.

                  The woman flinched, eyes widening, and for a split second, they almost looked black. Then she pealed out and away, wheels squealing, and the pair was left with their strange protector.

                  “Who’re you?” Lucy demanded, wheeling around with her small hands on her hips.

                  The gold eyes shifted towards her steadily, as if they were looking all the way through her.

                  “I am called Altaïr,” he answered after a pause.

                  “Alt-aye-” Lucy attempted, but she was drowned out by Desmond.

                  “I want ice cream,” he declared.

It wasn’t fair that they’d walked all this way only to have this strange man stop them from getting their ice cream. Lucy had promised. Now, though, she tugged hard on his elbow.

                  “Let’s go, Desmond,” she muttered.

                  He wanted to protest, to remind her that she’d promised him half an ice cream cone that he didn’t yet have, but her voice was strangely firm. He couldn’t find it in himself to argue. Instead, he stomped the entire way back to the park and sat himself up on a swing away from Lucy. She was silent the entire way; she glanced over her shoulder a few times, but when Desmond followed her gaze, he could see nothing. The stranger had vanished.

                  Her mother arrived an hour later, and Desmond spent the ride home regaling her with their adventure and hinting after an ice cream cone while Lucy stared out the window. He didn’t get one, and they weren’t allowed to return to the park. By the time he moved two months later, Desmond had all but forgotten about the stranger named Altaïr.


	3. Chapter Two

                  “Rose! Stop it!” Desmond snapped.

                  He leaned towards the window, pulling the game away from the reach of his sister’s grabby hands.

                  “Dessy!” she squealed. “Dessy, gimme!”

                  “Rose! Get your hands off – Dad, she won’t stop trying to take my Gameboy,” he complained, seeking his adopted father’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

                  In the passenger seat, Desmond’s older brother heaved a long-suffering sigh and glared over his shoulder into the back seat. Sixteen going on thirty, Daniel rarely even acknowledged the younger two, and now his fingers were clicking away at his phone while he complained about its limitations versus his friends’ new smartphones. Their father, somehow, seemed immune to both the fighting in the backseat and the muttering in the front.

                  “Rose, leave your brother alone. Desmond, ask nicely,” he chided mildly.

                  Rose’s freckled nose scrunched up and she turned her pout to her father’s back. Free at last, Desmond huffed a sigh of relief and slumped back down in his seat. He’d just about beat this level – all he had to do was take out the boss. As his thumb shifted to the keys, though, a tiny, chubby hand made a last determined grab for the screen.

                  “ _Rose!_ ” he yelped.

                  “Jesus, Desmond, it’s a _game_ ,” Daniel snapped.

                  “Daniel, leave your brother alone,” their father sighed, reaching an arm back to try to blindly retrieve the console.

                  He only glanced back briefly. The car shifted to the left, too fast for the semi to catch. Daniel screamed, hand extended. Glass shattered – and Desmond was gone.

                  Black surrounded him, streaked with gold like falling stars, and then he was landing on the street, something firm and cold cushioning his back from the asphalt. Feathers ruffled around him, curved overhead from their origin in the back of the man crouched over him. The man’s eyes were narrow gold slits, his arms curved around Desmond’s body.

                  “Who are you?” Desmond gasped.

                  The man – _many? –_ stared back at him, eyes opening and a faint crinkle appearing between their brow, like they were trying to frown but couldn’t quite muster the energy. Desmond was trembling, shaking against the arms and – and wings cradling him.

                  “Where’s my family? Where’s Rose and Danny and Joshua?” he demanded.

                  There was no answer.

                  “Where are they?” he repeated. “Where did they go?”

                  The man was silent, impassive and unreadable.

                  “What did you do to them?” Desmond shouted.

                  He slammed his hands into the man’s chest, trying to shove them away. It did nothing except hurt his hands; the man stayed silent, unreadable except for that nearly-real frown.

                  “You are safe,” they said, as if that answered Desmond’s questions.

                  “ _Where are they?!_ ” Desmond screamed – but the man was gone.

                  Desmond’s back hit the asphalt hard, and it took a moment to catch his breath. Then, he scrambled to his feet and raced towards the car he could just barely see upside down in the opposite ditch. The semi driver caught him by one arm, yanking him back as the leaking gas tank combusted. Flames licked up from the engine to the body of the car, flickering red and gold. He fought against the woman’s wiry arms, but she held fast. Sirens sounded, wailing closer and closer like a keening dirge, and he was passed to a cop, to an ambulance, to his mom’s too-tight arms. He clung to her.

                  It took three days for Desmond to squeeze out of the overcrowded house. Both sides of the family had gathered en masse, like a flock of weeping starlings. Sarah’s parents had driven down from Chicago and Joshua’s had flown in from New York, and all the relatives in between had crowded into the grey four-bedroom house until it seemed every corner and nook was filled. Desmond stumbled out into the garden, gulping in the fresh air.

                  It was small, only a corner of their lawn, but it covered the area in which a half-rotted locust had stood when they first bought the house. The roses Joshua had planted around the perimeter were just tall enough to hide a skinny boy crouched down behind them in the petunias. Desmond swallowed hard and cleared his throat.

                  “If – if you’re out there,” he stammered, “y’can – can you come here?”

                  There was a pause, only the quiet sound of the wind rustling the bushes just behind his head. Then, a soft breath, like a long-held sigh. Desmond didn’t have to look up to feel a cool, electric weight settle in the air like the moments before a storm. He hesitated, struggling to find the words he sought. He kept his gaze focused on the ground a few inches ahead of his feet, as if it would provide inspiration.

                  “Altaïr?” he asked.

                  It had come to him last night, while he tossed and turned and tried to outlast the nightmares. The memory had been long buried, but it came easily all of a sudden – a stranger, warmth, and cold gold eyes. The name fit, somehow, like a jacket found at the back of his closet: snug and familiar.

                  “Are – are you my guardian angel?” he asked.

                  Ten toes were just within his eyeline, bare and tan against the auburn mulch. The silence continued for some time, broken only by Desmond’s occasional sniff.

                  “You are my ward,” Altaïr finally answered. “I am to protect and guide you as the Lord commands.”

                  “What about my family?” Desmond demanded. “Why didn’t you protect them?”

                  His lip quivered along with his voice, an edge of plaintiveness creeping in without his say.  There was silence again, and Desmond lifted his head to look up at the angel. Altaïr’s arms hung useless at their sides, face expressionless save for that subtle not-frown he’d worn two days before. They didn’t seem quite as tall as they had three years ago or even three days ago. Somehow, they had shrunk down into a plain man with a grey t-shirt and no shoes. They hardly seemed like the pictures Desmond had seen at Sunday school, of wide white wings and shining armor.

                  “It was their fate,” Altaïr offered.

                  “Why?” Desmond demanded.

                  “God willed it thus,” Altaïr replied.

                  Desmond’s fists balled up against the dirt.

                  “Rose was five!” he yelled. “Why did He want her to die? She didn’t deserve it!”

                  He’d spent the past three days being pressed into strangers’ chests, with too-tight arms and cloying cologne. They all said the same thing: we’re so sorry; they’re in a better place now; they’re watching over you. He wanted to scream. ‘Sorry’ didn’t bring them back. ‘A better place’ didn’t explain what was wrong with this one. ‘Watching’ wasn’t _here._ His chest ached with the unfairness of it, the sickening, twisting pull of grief and directionless anger.

                  He’d take Rose’s incessant chatter, Daniel’s snide comments, Joshua’s occasional scolding. He just wanted them back.

                  “I do not know how to comfort you,” Altaïr admitted.

                  Their inflection didn’t change, and Desmond started as the toes shifted out of his view. Instead, the angel knelt stiffly before settling back, cross-legged with their hands resting on their legs. Desmond swallowed before dropping clumsily onto his own rear. He kept an arm around his legs, chin on his right knee, and studied the dirt by his sneakers.

                  “Have you…lost somebody?” he asked, pinching dirt up between his index finger and thumb.

                  “…yes,” Altaïr replied, slowly. “I have lost many.”

                  “Oh,” Desmond managed. “Sorry.”

                  “It…is not the same,” Altaïr started. “You feel the pain far more deeply than I.”

                  Desmond frowned. That didn’t sound good, but he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Maybe it had just been a long time ago; everyone kept saying it got easier, anyway. He gave up after a few minutes and slumped, head and shoulder falling against Altaïr. The angel stiffened, arm going rigid and tight. They didn’t move away, though, so Desmond stayed. Gradually, Altaïr relaxed ever-so-slightly until they almost felt human.

                  “Are they in Heaven?” Desmond asked after several minutes of quiet.

                  If anyone could tell him, it would be an angel. Still, it took a long minute for Altaïr to answer.

                  “No,” they said, “but they are at peace. It is…beautiful where they are.”

                  Desmond released a breath and nodded slightly. His whole body was tired now, like the anger had taken all his energy when it slipped away. There were voices calling his name from the house, but he wasn’t quite ready. He still had one more question.

                  “Are you gonna’ stay?” he asked.

                  The air sharpened as if electrified, and something rustled just behind them, like a dozen wings ruffling against each other.

                  “If that is your wish,” Altaïr agreed.

                  Nodding again, Desmond clambered to his feet. By the time he’d straightened up, the angel was gone, but he could still feel a strange, staticy weight tickling the back of his neck. Wherever Altaïr had gone, it wasn’t far.


	4. Chapter Three

                  They moved after that, and Altaïr followed. Joshua and Sarah had talked about it before – relocating to a place better suited to three energetic kids. Sarah’s parents still held a small acreage despite their own relocation to the city, and the old farmhouse had seemed ideal for giving them each a little more breathing room.

                  Now, it loomed over them like a great ribcage, dusty and silent. Desmond could almost hear Rose’s footsteps down the tall, narrow staircase and Daniel’s closing door in the third-floor bedroom furthest from the road. The house was meant for the memories they would have made, not for a new life. He swallowed and looked away.

                  Sarah had set him to exploring while she contacted the local gas company, and he’d made it through most the house. Altaïr wandered with him, keeping within the same room but not quite beside Desmond. The eleven-year-old sighed and dropped down on the windowseat in the current room.

                  “Whatcha’ think?” he asked.

                  Altaïr turned slightly from where they were apparently examining the woodwork of the French doors.

                  “It is a house,” they replied.

                  Desmond slumped and somehow managed not to utter the _no shit, Sherlock_ that sprang immediately to his lips.

                  “Right,” he sighed, and that settled it.

                  It took a bit to refigure his life minus three plus one, but they settled into a routine as he settled into their new home. During weekdays, Altaïr was nothing more than a comforting hum in the back of Desmond’s mind, a steady weight on his consciousness; after dinner and on the weekends, the angel manifested in their near-equally silent physical form. They were as stiff and still as always, but it was still comforting, soothing to know that he wasn’t alone.

                  Or it was to a certain extent, anyway.

                  “Desmond, come help me with the groceries,” Sarah called.

                  Desmond scowled at his avatar on the screen, hands still wrapped around the controller.

                  “Desmond!” Sarah called again.

                  Huffing a sigh, he slammed the pause button and swung his legs down from his bed.

                  “I’m _coming_!” he yelled back.

                  Altaïr’s brow twitched, as if they were going to frown, but they said nothing. Desmond stalked out, feet heavy and loud on the wooden stairs. Sarah was by the front door, and she frowned slightly at his stomping but merely turned to head back to the SUV outside. She scooped up three of the plastic sacks, hooking them over her arms, and Desmond grabbed one in each hand, leaving the last slouched alone in the back of the car. Dropping his bags on the counter beside Sarah’s, Desmond immediately turned for the stairs.

                  “Desmond,” Sarah chided.

                  “What?” he snapped. “I helped.”

                  “Desmond!” Sarah scolded. “Get back here and help me put these away. You’ve been on that video game for hours – the least you can do is put away a few groceries.”

                  “I have not!” he protested. “I was doing homework.”

                  Of course, he omitted an integral _‘two hours ago.’_

                  “Don’t get snippy with me,” Sarah warned. “Help me put these away or I’m taking that game away for the week.”

                  Jaw clenched, Desmond stalked back to the kitchen and began yanking groceries out of the sacks. He didn’t quite slam anything, knowing the reprimand it would earn them, but the jam and juice still thudded against the counter. As soon as he’d dropped the last apple in the basket on the table, he bolted upstairs. Altaïr was already there, of course, waiting.

                  “You should respect your mother,” they reprimanded.

                  Their voice was flat, inflectionless – like they couldn’t even summon the energy to believe in their own reprimands. It prickled at Desmond’s neck, and he threw up his hands.

                  “Don’t quote your fucking Bible at me! You don’t even have a mom,” he spat.

                  As far as comebacks went, it wasn’t exactly his pithiest. It didn’t help his mood.

                  “Just get the fuck out of here, okay? I don’t want to see you,” he snapped over his shoulder, dropping into his desk chair.

                  The room was silent, painfully so, and Desmond chanced a brief glance over his shoulder.  It was empty. The faint buzz remained at the nape of his neck, but the room itself held nothing but hollow silence. Huffing a breath, Desmond forced himself to focus onto the algebra scrawled over his notebook. Within minutes, the characters had morphed into black squiggles and blurred graphs.

                  “Shit,” he breathed.

                  He dropped his pencil, scrubbing his hands through gel-stiffened hair. Sighing, he crossed the room and shoved open the window to clamber out onto the roof. The moon was full and orange beyond the skeletal branches of the honey locust just beside the tree, and the stars shone bright and crisp in the cool night air. Focusing on the great orange orb, Desmond took a slow, deep breath and pulled his knees up towards like he had as a child.

                  “I – I don’t know if You’re really out there or if anyone is, but if You are – just,” he sighed and scrubbed a hand back through his hair. “I’d take anything. It doesn’t have to be a – a burning bush or lightning or whatever. Just – something. Anything.”

                  The branches rattled together, the old house creaked, and the moon stared down at him, impassive as ever. _What’d you expect?_ Desmond dropped his chin to his knees and fought back the bitter sting of overwhelmingness and disappointment.

                  “You’re dialing the wrong daddy, kiddo,” a voice drawled behind him.

                  “Fucking-” Desmond burst out.

                  He jerked around to see a dark figure slouched in one corner of his window.

                  “See, the Old Man Upstairs doesn’t give a shit about people like you an’ me,” the intruder continued.

                  They paused a moment, just long enough for Desmond to spot the orange-red glow of a cigarette butt.

                  “Hell he’s too busy for most his feather-brains,” they continued with a laugh. “Now, you start looking downstairs, and you’ve got a packed audience.”

                  Desmond couldn’t make out their features – the open window backlit them until they were only a dark silhouette with a faint hint of gold around the edges – but then, he didn’t really need to. There was only one person he knew who could zap into being, and this newcomer wasn’t talking like an angel. _Altaïr? I take it back. I could really use you right now._

                  “Don’t worry, kid,” the intruder laughed. “I’m not gonna’ hurt you.”

                  The glowing red-orange dot dropped down in a lazy arc through the darkness, like they’d just dropped their hand to their lap.

                  “Right,” Desmond scoffed.

                  He’d inched a little closer to the house, but there wasn’t any way in without going through the window the intruder blocked. The litany of _Altaïr?_ picked up pace.

                  “I’m just checkin’ in on you, kid,” the intruder reassured. “Doubt Feathers is a lotta’ help.”

                  Immediate agreement bubbled up in Desmond’s throat and he forced it down. Altaïr was useless – they either stood in silence or repeated the same trite sayings about duty and Godliness. Anything remotely human far surpassed their abilities. Hell, Desmond wasn’t even sure if they were all that good at being an angel.

                  “Why would a – a demon want to help me?” he demanded.

                  The glowing dot rose and tipped faintly in what looked like a half-hidden salute.

                  “Clever, aren’t you?” the demon drawled. “We’re not all evil. Sure, you got some who’re all doom and gloom and bring down heaven, but we’re just like you guys. We just wanna’ make a living, and when we see someone special like you getting stepped on by the Big Guy…well, we get it. We’ve been there.

                  There was a strange weight of sincerity in their voice, like they actually believed what they were saying despite the caustic edge to their tone. Desmond wet his lips, hunting for a response. Demons were bad – he didn’t have to be a religious zealot to know that. But...but so far Altaïr hadn’t exactly been _good_ , so how was he to judge?

                  Before he could reply, the sky ripped apart. White burnt through Desmond’s retinas, blinding and searing. Voices screamed, polyphonic howls of agony and hatred. The wind shrieked around them, whistling as if through bone.

                  “Leave,” the noises ordered.

                  The ground shook with the sound of them, quaking up through the shingles and into Desmond’s bones. He’d curled fetal instinctively and couldn’t see what was happening. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. The buzz at the base of his neck had grown, amplified into something heavy and taut over his rolled-tight form. Through his scrunched-shut eyes, he could still feel light bleeding through.

                  “ _Altaïr!_ Lordee, this’s one helluva demotion,” the demon crowed.

                  “Malik,” the noises ground out.

                  It hurt to listen to them, like someone a dog whistle too close to his ear only far louder and more piercing. _Go away, go away, go away_ , Desmond whimpered. He curled tighter in on himself.

                  “Watch it, Feathers. You’re scaring your pet,” the demon purred.

                  There was a pause. Then, something brushed gently against the curve of Desmond’s back and shoulders. Cool and comforting, it felt familiar – like wings cushioning his back from an empty street. Desmond’s muscles eased out of their locked-tight position, and the panic gradually receded. Pulling his arm away from his face, he opened his eyes just enough to peek.

                  The night sky had come down from the heavens, wrapping itself in the form of rustling wings that shifted, multitudinous, around Desmond’s frame. Overhead, the sky had been leached of color into the same blinding shade as a December day when the sky and the snow blended into a never-ending stretch of white. Desmond gaped.

                  “You are not welcome here,” the noises warned. “Leave.”

                  Altaïr was angry, Desmond realized with a start. The noises – their voice – made his ears ring, and triggered some mouse-like instinct in his brain that screamed ‘don’t move’ over and over again. This wasn’t a rabid or cornered animal; it was the creatures he’d heard stories of when he was little, the kind that hunted people not for food or territory but because it was fun and they liked the taste.

                  “Aw, come on, Alty,” the demond wheedled, “ain’t y’gonna’ give me a chance?”

                  “Leave,” Altaïr repeated. “Yours is not a path Desmond may take.”

                  Something in Desmond, something tiny and idiotic and utterly adolescent, scowled at that.

                  “Of course,” the demon drawled. “Keep him on the straight an’ narrow till he’s served his purpose, right? Just another good little tool.”

                  “He will do as the Lord wills,” Altaïr growled.

                  Whatever self-preservation Desmond had made a quick exit to the left as his indignation threw itself to the surface. He scrambled to hit feet only to stumble back from the wall of oil-black feathers in front of him. An outer pair caught him, curving gently around his back. He stared for half a breath, disoriented, at the feathery walls cocooning him. Then, shaking himself out of it, he pushed forward.

                  “Look, it’s – it’s cool you’re fighting over me and all, but – it’s my life,” he objected. “I get to choose.”

                  “I like ‘im!” the demon crowed. “He’s got spunk.”

                  The tiered wings rose like dog’s hackles behind him, the light catching on the sword Altaïr apparently had – and this was definitely reshaping Desmond’s view of the passive, bland angel he’d known for the last nine years. The demon across from them was grinning, cigarette hanging lazily from the corner of their mouth. Desmond swallowed hard.

                  “This is not a choice you can make, Desmond,” Altaïr warned.

                  His voice had gentled slightly, been remolded into something vaguely comprehensible, but it still hurt. Gritting his teeth, Desmond squared his shoulders.

                  “Yeah, it is,” he retorted. “Look, it’s my life. I get to choose what I do, and if it’s not what I wanna’ do, I’m not going to. So, God, the Devil – I don’t give a shit. It’s my call. Free will…right?”

                  His voice tipped upwards at the end, and he tried to pretend he was more certain than it sounded.

                  “Lookit that,” the demon beamed, “all grown up and fighting the Big G-”

                 

                  Altaïr’s outermost set of wings buffeted him hard to the ground with a single snap. There was a yelp, a thud, and then the demon started chuckling. Altaïr ignored him, turning to face Desmond with a fully-forged frown creasing their brow for the first time in Desmond’s memory.

                  “I cannot prevent you from doing what you wish,” they conceded, “but I ask that you reconsider. Associating with demons will bring you nothing but ill.”

                  Their voice was low and painfully earnest, still thrumming with unsettled aggression and with something else that Desmond couldn’t quite place. He swallowed, unsettled.

                  “My call,” he repeated quietly.

                  Altaïr was silent, studying his face before finally inclining their head. Their wings had shuffled into graceful folds on their back, and they lowered the silver blade in their hand absently.

                  “As you wish,” the angel acquiesced.

                  Desmond nodded slightly, echoing Altaïr’s gesture, and swallowed down the bitter tinge from the back of his throat before turning to duck back through his window. He paused, glancing back over at Altaïr. They still stood on the edge of the roof, head bowed and turned slightly towards where the demon had fallen. The artificial light was receding from the sky, slowly camouflaging the great black wings on the angel’s back.

                  “Hey, Altaïr?” Desmond called.

                  The angel glanced up, expression blank.

                  “I like the wings,” Desmond remarked, offering a smile.

                  Altaïr didn’t smile, of course, but there was the faintest quirk to their lips as they looked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm sorry. I'm just going to dump what I have done with this on here and let y'all have at it because I'm not sure when I'll have the time to work on this since ASCSF is kinda' my main project right now (after with my original fiction, of course).
> 
> Anyway, hope you guys enjoy it!


	5. Chapter Four

                  Desmond flinched, hiding a wince at the loud _crack_ he heard behind him. Sarah didn’t glance up as she studied the variety of chicken in the open freezer, but Desmond twisted around to check the damage. Altaïr had Malik pinned by the throat, wings extended overhead in a dark canopy. There wasn’t any visible damage to the store, but shoppers were avoiding that area like some subsonic message was warning them away.

                  He sighed and forced himself not to pinch his nose in exasperation.

                  They’d been constantly ripping into each other for the past month, slamming each other into walls and pummeling one another. Half the time, Desmond couldn’t tell if Malik was flirting or fighting, but Altaïr’s reactions were unmistakably aggressive; the shrill screams hadn’t reappeared, but their face had assumed a constant stony look of wrath. Given the gaping wounds they’d given Malik, Desmond was pretty sure Altaïr wasn’t just posturing.

                  Of course, there wasn’t much of anything he could do. They were angels and demons. He was a fourteen-year-old kid.

He turned back and tapped his fingers against the cart handle while Sarah dropped a package of chicken into the cart and motioned for Desmond to move forward. Behind him, he heard a strangled scream. He couldn’t tell whose it was.

                  The months wore on, and the static in the base of his skull that had always signaled Altaïr’s presence grew and multiplied until it was a buzzing weight pressing on Desmond’s shoulders like a thunderhead. Neither could be persuaded to leave him alone for any length of time longer than a trip to the bathroom; Altaïr didn’t trust Malik near Desmond, and Malik couldn’t resist a chance to needle the angel. At school, they wore glamours that hid them from everyone else’s view, but Desmond could still feel them in the back of the room.

                  “Gotta’ sting,” Malik drawled. “Eden’s favorite son gettin’ knocked down here to watch over one measly human. Even Michael woulda’ liked it better.”

                  Altaïr stared straight forward at the back of Desmond’s head, ignoring the demon. A prophet’s soul was a shining thing, a gleaming singularity in the midst of a crowded galaxy, and the souls around it stretched and warped in its gravity.

                  “Way I’ve heard it, you would’ve burnt down the whole place ‘fore you let someone ground you,” Malik continued. “What happened? Daddy Dearest give you a spanking for-”

                  Altaïr’s hand clenched around their neck, fingers digging in and leaving purple-black bruises. The demon’s skin sizzled and seared underneath their holy touch. The angel’s expression was flat and impassive even as the bookshelves distorted around Malik’s body and the lightbulbs flared bright before spitting out.

                  “Must’ve been a bitch,” Malik hissed. “Gettin’ shamed in front of the whole damn Host. How’s your ego doing nowadays?”

                  Altaïr’s hand tightened, the muscles and tendons underneath it caving with wet snaps, but Malik pulled out a strangled sneer. The teacher was trying to reassure her class, cobbling together excuses of breakers and wiring issues while her students spun out tales of school shootings and bombings. Desmond closed his eyes and pressed a hand against his brow ridge. _Guys, knock it off. And turn the lights back on._

                  For a moment, it seemed Altaïr wouldn’t obey; their fingers dug tighter into the ruined flesh of Malik’s neck. The demon held their gaze with a jagged grin. Finally, reluctantly, Altaïr shoved him back against the wall and stepped away. The lights flickered back on, outlining the clench of Altaïr’s jaw in hard white lines. Malik cracked his neck to the side, wrecked flesh knitting itself back together seamlessly. A five-fingered scar remained like a scarlet collar.

                  “So you’re into the kinky shit, huh?” he taunted. “Figures.”

                  He got no hint of acknowledgment, but then, he hadn’t been expecting it. It had been a while since he’d associated with angels much, but the past six months had been more than enough to refresh his memory. Angels didn’t emote much on a good day, and on a bad one, they were too busy smiting to think of smiling. The demon slouched back and flicked a cigarette out of the ether. A tap of his finger lit it.

                  The chemical scent of Malik’s cigarette reached Desmond after a moment, and he settled back into his seat. If Malik was smoking, then neither of them was dead. As much as it would probably simplify his life, he wasn’t ready for either to kill the other.

                  “Desmond?”

                  He winced.

                  “Uh, could you repeat the question?” he asked.

                  The teacher sighed, lips pursing slightly before she acquiesced.

                  “In this section, Henry offers the traitors a chance to show mercy and they refuse. What is the importance of this scene?” she repeated.

                  Desmond hesitated, eyes scanning over the text open on his desk. He’d enjoyed the play so far, but he’d mostly been in it for the sweeping speeches and drama. He hadn’t paid any more attention than necessary to the minor characters.

                  “It foreshadows their own death,” he offered, clearing his throat before continuing. “They refused to give mercy to men with minor crimes, so Henry doesn’t show them any when they beg for it. They – well, they sort of show how crappy they are as people.”

                  “Language, Desmond,” the teacher chided before turning to the rest of the class. “He’s correct. Shakespeare uses this to demonstrate the traitors’ characters as well as Henry’s justness. Why would he need to show this? Think again of the historical…”

                  Relieved, Desmond let out a quiet breath and turned back to the study guide draped limply over his book as her voice turned once more into a comfortable buzz.

                  Once school was out, he hitched his bag higher onto his shoulders and dropped his longboard to the sidewalk. Altaïr’s presence was warm against his neck, lighter and less oppressive than it’d been in months, and he couldn’t help breathing easier. Glancing up, he spotted them waiting nearby with their wings folded neatly to their back. They’d left their wings out ever since Malik arrived, and though he couldn’t tell whether it was in response to his comment or a way to intimidate Malik, Desmond still hadn’t gotten over how cool they looked.

                  “So, I thought angels’ wings were all white and fluffy,” he remarked, kicking off the sidewalk towards Sarah’s work.

                  The life insurance from four years ago had been enough that she didn’t really need to work, but she’d claimed she couldn’t stand being idle. Designing satellite dishes, apparently, was the best solution. Altaïr kept pace with Desmond, hands limp and empty at their sides.

                  “Wings are merely humans’ perceptions of physical manifestations of our grace,” they answered.

                  “Of course,” Desmond scoffed. “English, Altaïr.”

                  The angel turned slightly towards him, almost-frown crinkling their forehead, but Desmond held up his hand to forestall them.

                  “It’s a figure of speech,” he explained. “You were just being super technical. So, basically, I’m seeing what I want to see?”

                  Altaïr’s wings rustled and shifted on their back.

                  “You see what your mind is able to comprehend,” they corrected

                  Desmond’s lips twitched, the impossibly human urge to refute the statement barely stifled.

                  “Will I ever see them?” he asked.

                  “When you die,” Altaïr answered.

                  Desmond choked, dropping a foot to stop himself. The look he shot Altaïr could only be described as horrified, but the angel didn’t seem fazed. After a moment, Desmond shook himself and started up again. They were both silent for a few minutes.

                  “What do they really look like then?” Desmond finally pressed.

                  Altaïr tilted their head thoughtfully.

                  “Much larger,” they replied before glancing over. “You ask strange questions.”

                  Startled, Desmond laughed. He couldn’t remember Altaïr ever voicing an opinion without him first somehow acting inappropriately for one of God’s prophets.

                  “I’ve literally got an angel and a demon sitting on my shoulders,” he pointed out. “What ‘normal’ question is there?”

                  “My last ward was much more interested in her destiny,” Altaïr explained. “She did not care about the shade of my wings.”

                  Desmond slowed, finally dropping his foot to come to a halt outside Sarah’s firm. Altaïr stopped dutifully.

                  “You guys have to double dip on prophets?” he asked.

                  There was a brief pause, like Altaïr was translating the phrase in their head.

                   “Yes,” they answered.

                  “How’s that work? Is it just luck of the draw or do you have like job titles? Like, these angels guard prophets, these grant wishes, these pose for Precious Moments?” Desmond pressed.

                  “There are tiers,” Altaïr explained vaguely. “The third – of which I am a part – plays a role in guarding prophets.”

                  Their weight shifted slightly, as if to continue walking.

                  “Huh,” Desmond managed. “So are there a bunch of you guys down here?”

                  He stepped on the end of his board, popping it up into his hand, and headed towards the open space beside the firm. He’d established the lone oak tree there as his study spot a couple years before and used it whenever the weather was nice enough; no one questioned him talking to thin air out here as long as his phone lay nearby.

                  “There are some other angels on Earth,” Altaïr replied, “but they stay only for the duration of their missions. Few are here for longer than a handful of your days.”

                  Desmond’s eyes widened, and he tossed a glance at the angel to check if they were teasing him. They never had before, but he figured Malik was bound to rub off on them at some point. Altaïr’s face was honest and expressionless as ever. _Okay, then._

                  “Do you ever see any of them?” he asked, pulling out his biology notebook.

                  “Some debrief with me before returning,” Altaïr explained, “but most report with their captains in Eden. We do not interfere in others’ duties.”

                  Desmond frowned down through his notebook. It sounded…lonely, being down here without anyone like him. He’d always thought of Altaïr as little more than a walking, talking automaton. It didn’t help that their default expression was a blank mask. But he’d seen them get angry – _really angry –_ at Malik. They had emotion. The thought made something cool and guilty knot up under his ribs.

                  “Do you get lonely?” he asked, quiet.

                  Altaïr exhaled what may have been a sigh. As it was, it only sounded like a whisper of air.

                  “Mine has always been a solitary post,” they replied. “You and Malik’s presence is more company than I have had in centuries.”

                  _Holy shit. Centuries?_ Altaïr’s voice was casual as they spoke, but the words hit Desmond like a punch to the gut. Sure, he knew Altaïr was an angel and theoretically immortal, but the nonchalant way they dropped that bomb shell was the first time he’d really thought about it. It was the first time he had cause to. Swallowing, he tried to push away the nausea that came with imagining hundreds of years with less than two people’s company. 

                  “Where’s Malik, anyway?” he asked, desperate for a subject change.

                  “Likely tempting souls,” Altaïr answered.

                  “Aren’t you supposed to stop him from doing that?” Desmond queried.

                  “That is his job,” Altaïr remarked. “This is mine.”

                  Desmond laughed at that, even as something warm blossomed in his chest. He was fairly sure that even lowly, third-tier angels were supposed to take care of more than one human, but he wasn’t going to object to the company. Still smiling faintly, he turned back to the differences between RNA and DNA. The weight at the nape of his neck stayed gentle and comforting for the rest of the afternoon.

                  Two hours later, a jolt like a knife through his ribs rocked him hard against their sedan. Desmond gasped, bracing himself against the open door and car frame.

                  “Desmond?” Sarah prompted, leaning across the middle console with a concerned frown.

                  “Just a Charlie horse,” he answered immediately.

                  She winced in sympathy but leaned back to start the car. Desmond grit his teeth together and lowered himself gingerly onto the worn leather. Pressure burnt white-hot against his back and ribs. _Altaïr?_ There was no reply.

                  He bolted from the car once they’d parked, taking the stairs two at a time. The walls shuddered as he went, heavy _thuds_ leading him to his bedroom. Flinging the door open, he froze. Everything was destroyed. The bookshelves were toppled with books half-burnt and half-shredded, the foot of his bed snapped in half, his desk recognizable only by the one leg that still stuck up from the rubble. Malik and Altaïr weren’t much better off. Altaïr’s wings were fanned out around the edges of the room, their t-shirt shredded and blood-soaked and their arm skinned from wrist to elbow. The left side of Malik’s face was a blistered, bleeding mess. Any piece of skin that wasn’t bleeding from jagged gashes was blistered hot and red.

                  “ _What the hell?!_ ” Desmond burst out.

                  Altaïr’s wings flared a little higher but neither looked over. Their left hand was pressed flush against Malik’s chest, just below the collarbone, and though Desmond couldn’t see a weapon, blood ran freely down the demon’s tattered shirt.

                  “Altaïr, let Malik go,” Desmond ordered. “Now.”

                  He didn’t think Altaïr would obey at first, and for a long moment they didn’t. Then, slowly, grudgingly, the angel pulled their arm back. A flash of silver, a click, and they dropped their hand to their side. They stepped back reluctantly, and Malik slouched onto his hips like he meant to, nevermind the gaping holes in his chest like Altaïr had simply punched through his flesh and bone. Both stood solid and staunch on their legs, knees bent ever-so-slightly as if ready for another round.

                  “What are you doing?” Desmond demanded.

                  “Just a bit of fun, kid,” Malik drawled, pausing to spit out blood. “Nothing to worry about.”

                  “Right,” Desmond ground out, glancing over at Altaïr.

                  The angel’s mien was flat and cold, anger icy in their gold eyes. Their wings were still spread, stretched impossibly through the shadows of the room.

                  “Okay,” Desmond declared. “Ground rules…”


	6. Chapter Five

                  “You know, you’re a helluva’ lot more fun when Bird Brain ain’t around to stop us,” Malik remarked.

                  Hands shoved deep in his pants pockets, the demon lounged back in his hips like an armchair, all nonchalance and smarm. Altaïr had only been gone for an hour or so, and Desmond could still feel their presence in the base of his skull, but it was enough for Malik to drop the acerbic jabs and fall into easy sarcasm and humor.        

                  “Yeah, well you’re a lot better when you aren’t just pissing him off,” Desmond rejoined, rolling lazily forward.

                  Malik scoffed.

                  “Hey, I gotta’ rep to maintain,” he retorted.

                  Desmond laughed and shook his head.

                  “How do you two know each other anyway?” he asked.

                  “Well, hanging around you-” Malik started.

                  Desmond rolled his eyes and the demon laughed, a throaty low rasp.

                  “Fine, fine. There was a little mishap in Egypt a few years ago,” he started again. “Plagues, slaves, you know the drill.”

                  _No…_ Desmond squinted over at Malik, trying to determine whether or not the demon was telling the truth. _My life has gotten way too fucking weird._ Before he could question it, though, Malik’s attention shifted to the left and he stiffened. Desmond followed his gaze to see a lanky blond strolling towards them with a stride like a cat on the hunt. Her hair hung in a long braid down her shoulder, black script tattooed up the other side of her neck. It looked like writing, but Desmond couldn’t even guess a language.

                  “Hey, doll,” Malik greeted, voice tight. “What’re you doing here?”

                  “Don’t worry, hun,” she replied as she reached them. “I’m just checkin’ in. Management wants an update, and anyway, I haven’t gotten to see this cutie.”

                  The last was said with a sickeningly sweet smile, and she reached out a hand towards Desmond’s cheek. He flinched, but she just laughed and patted his cheek.

                  “Aw, kid, you’re _precious_ ,” she purred.

                  Malik scowled, hands shoved firmly into his pockets and shoulders stiff. He didn’t move as the woman poked at Desmond and circled him. He seemed to have planted his feet and gaze like a soldier at reluctant attention.

Luckily, the inspection was cut short. Little more than a minute after she’d begun, the woman flinched back with wide grey eyes focused beyond Desmond.

“Altaïr,” she breathed. “It really is you.”

There was something strange in her voice, something that sounded almost like fear – or awe.

                  “Hello, Helen,” Altaïr greeted.

                  “I wasn’t hurting him. I didn’t touch – I was just seeing, that’s it,” the woman, Helen, burst out. “I swear.”

                  It _was_ fear, Desmond realized. Startled, he glanced back towards Altaïr and then to the pair before them. Malik had relaxed back into his slack-back stance, but the woman quivered as she stared at Altaïr. She bolted.

                  “Damn, Feathers,” Malik drawled. “Way to be a cockblock.”

                  He’d relaxed completely with the woman’s departure, rolling his head back slightly towards Altaïr.

                  “Are you harmed?” Altaïr asked Desmond.

                  “Nah, I’m fine,” Desmond affirmed, rubbing at the back of his skull. “Just – uh, startled, I guess.”

                  Altaïr was silent for a moment, eyes narrowed in scrutiny, before they inclined their head slightly. When they spoke, it wasn’t aloud.

_Do you wish me to stay?_

Startled, Desmond flinched and fumbled for a few moments. Altaïr had never done this before, and the quiet, full voice in his head was enough to knock him back a few steps. The loaded sincerity was overwhelming. He glanced over at Malik, watching the two of them closely from the corner of his eye.

                  _No, that’s okay. We’ll be fine._

There was a pause, like Altaïr was deciding whether or not Desmond was telling the truth, but then their wings lifted slightly and they vanished. Desmond squinted at the space they’d just occupied for a few moments, wondering how the hell that actually worked. He’d never seen Altaïr’s wings flap like a bird or anything, but they always twitched up right before they left as if they were going to.

                  “So, what was all that about?” he asked, once he’d shaken himself out of it.

                  “Helen?” Malik guessed before shrugging hunched shoulders. “Supervisor.”

                  “She’s your boss?” Desmond asked. “How come she was so spooked by Altaïr?”

                  “Unfortunately,” Malik affirmed before turning to frown at Desmond. “Whaddaya’ mean, why was she spooked by Alty?”

                  “Well, a boss demon’s gotta’ be pretty strong, right?” Desmond clarified, kicking off the ground. “So why was she scared of some guardian angel?”

                  Malik snorted in laughter. It didn’t sound happy.

                  “Yeah, like any demon’s gonna’ go up against an arch,” he replied, dry.

                  “A what?” Desmond prompted.

                  “Arch? Arch angel?” Malik checked.

                  It was vaguely familiar, like he’d heard it before. Admittedly, most things with Malik and Altaïr were somewhat familiar and then it turned out that whatever he’d heard was way off base. Desmond waited, watching Malik. Malik met his confusion with a blank stare, sardonic humor completely absent.

                  “Altaïr?” the demon prompted. “Y’know, ‘Prince of Heaven,’ ‘Serveth at the Right Hand of God the Father’ yada yada?”

                  The melodramatic tone he affected did nothing to abate Desmond’s confusion.

                  “How the – _Prince Ego_ didn’t give you the down low on who they are?” Malik demanded.

                  “Prince Ego?” Desmond echoed, eyebrow raising.

                  “They’re the most self-centered bastard this side a’ creation!” Malik exclaimed. “How did you escape?”

                  “What do you demons even do down there except make up stupid names and steal candy from babies?” Desmond demanded, adding under his breath, “Don’t know how the hell you manage to piss Altaïr off so much.”

                  “Hey,” Malik objected. “There is a damn legion of souls down in the Pit thanks to me.”

                  “Uh-huh,” Desmond replied, unimpressed.

                  The demon recoiled, miffed, and started rattling off his success stories, angel hierarchy long forgotten. Desmond couldn’t help laughing at the demon’s earnestness, but their conversation niggled at the back of his mind like a loose tooth. He’d ask Altaïr later, maybe. It was probably nothing, anyway.


	7. Chapter Six

                  He never got a chance. Altaïr returned within a few hours, but Desmond was helping prepare dinner. Then came homework, sleep, and in the morning, the trudge to school. A forgotten quiz in Spanish rapidly replaced angels at the top of his priorities. He had the vaguest feeling that it wouldn’t matter who was sitting on his shoulder when it came to getting into college in a few years. By the time he walked to Sarah’s work, he was fighting back yawns.

                  That ended abruptly.

                  “Desmond!” Sarah greeted as he reached her office. “Look who I just met!”

                  A slender blond turned and smiled over her shoulder. For a split second, Desmond’s heart stopped.

                  “Lucy?” he demanded.

                  “Hey, Des,” she answered, grinning.

                  Her smile was warm and quietly pleased, and Desmond took an instinctive step forward. She mirrored him, and then his arms came up around her back in a tight hug. It was a little awkward, Desmond having grown almost exclusively _up_ in the past nine years. Behind them, Sarah laughed along with a familiar man’s voice.

                  “I guess we didn’t need to worry about them not remembering each other,” the man commented.

                  The teens separated, Desmond blushing and Lucy thinning her lips. Lucy’s father stood beside Sarah, smiling.

                  “What are you doing here?” Desmond asked, rubbing the back of his neck as if that would make his blush fade faster.

                  “John’s working with me, now,” Sarah explained. “They’re coming over for dinner tonight.”

                  Lucy smiled, and Desmond grinned in reply. Beside Sarah, Lucy’s dad chuckled and glanced towards his watch.

                  “Well, we should probably make sure Mom hasn’t gotten lost unpacking,” he remarked before turning towards Sarah. “Six o’clock? Do you want us to bring anything?”

                  “Six o’clock,” Sarah confirmed, “and nothing but your appetites.”

                  The adults chuckled and shook hands before grabbing their coats and suitcases to leave. Once they’d closed the car doors, Sarah glanced over to Desmond with a small smile.

                  “Good suprirse?” she asked.

                  He laughed.

                  “Yeah. Definitely a good surprise,” he affirmed.

                  She turned back to the front with a pleased smile and started the car. They swung through the grocery store first to pick up a little more food than they usually needed for just the two of them, and at home they immediately set to work. They’d developed a routine shortly after moving here, where Desmond helped her cook until the dishes were either simmering on the stove of baking in the oven, and then he’d set the table. Between four forty-five and six o’clock, Desmond didn’t have a spare moment to think of either Malik or Altaïr.

                  That didn’t mean the same was true for them.

                  “Aw, ain’t that adorable?” Malik drawled. “Kid’s finally got a girl.”

                  They were both leaning back against the stair railing, though Altaïr stood far more stiffly than Malik’s usual slouch. The demon shot a quick glance at the angel as they spoke, a brief study of their stoic face. There was something itching under Malik’s skin, something clicking like nails against old stones. It’d been getting more and more constant over the past few months, though he couldn’t quite place it. All he knew was that it at once grew louder and gentler whenever he was near Altaïr.

Now, it settled slightly at the expression on the angel’s face; they were still impassive, but their eyes seemed a little softer than usual.

                  “Lookit you getting all sappy ‘cause your boy’s grown up,” Malik teased. “Next thing you know, he’ll be out knockin’ girls up and voting for Trump.”

                  “You must think very poorly of me if that is the outcome you expect,” Altaïr replied before glancing down towards the demon. “I am not sentimental.”

                  Malik settled back against the railing with a dismissive wave of his hand.

                  “Right, right. You Robocops don’t feel anything except righteousness and divine fury,” he scoffed.

                  “You know that is false,” Altaïr replied.

                  Their voice was quiet, but something ached underneath, something hollow and yearning just beneath the surface. Malik flinched and turned towards Altaïr before he could stop himself. The angel’s expression was flat and empty except for that near-crease between his brows and a gold burnish to his irises. It was easier to focus on that than the way that ache under Altaïr’s voice caused an echoing jolt through Malik’s chest.

                  “Really? You can’t tell she’s not one of us just by looking?” he asked, dry.

                  Altaïr didn’t move, and Malik only held out for a few moments longer before huffing a sigh and blinking once. The house shifted and distorted briefly before resettling; each soul seated around the dining room table glowed, and Altaïr burnt white in his periphery. Focusing on the humans, Malik scanned them briefly. Lucy and Desmond’s parents glowed a gentle blue like a nightlight in a dark hallway, while Desmond simmered and shone gold. Next to him, Lucy wasn’t quite the sun, but she was still damned bright. But – there.

                  “Shit,” he breathed.

                  There was a sliver of a shadow, oily and dark against the brilliance of her soul.

                  “Who got ‘er?” he asked.

                  Altaïr shook their head slightly, ethereal glow fading from their eyes. The frown remained.

                  “I don’t know,” Altaïr admitted.

                  “Probably some little shit trying to make a name,” Malik concluded.

                  He blinked his eyes clear and leaned back against the railing, glancing over at the angel. Altaïr was mute once more, and Malik turned back towards the families sitting around the table.

                  “Oh, Lord, college?” Sarah laughed. “I don’t even want to think about that yet!”

                  Desmond blanched, staring down at the sweet potatoes on his plate rather than meeting any of the adults’ eyes. Across the table from him, Lucy’s smile stiffened around the corners.

                  “So many kids are already prepping for it,” Mr. Stillman replied, shaking his head. “Half of Lucy’s class is already going on visits!”   

                  Sneaking a peek up, Desmond caught Lucy’s eye and shared a grimace at the thought. They had over three years till college – practically a lifetime. Now, they had more immediate concerns with their parents’ rapid descent towards nostalgia.

                  “It was just a few months after Desmond came to us,” Mrs. Stillman was explaining. “I went to pick them up after work, and immediately, he starts talking about this – oh who was it? He had the strangest name.”

                  “Altaïr,” Lucy chipped in.

                  Desmond flinched. Her expression was innocently attentive, though her glaze slid towards him in a flat, impassive way.

                  “Right – what a weird name! Anyway, they get in the car and say this Altaïr stopped them from getting ice cream,” Mrs. Stillman continued.

                  Lucy watched Desmond, gaze unreadable, but her eyes narrowed for a brief moment before she turned her attention back to her mother with a faint smile. Desmond’s mouth went dry, the nape of his neck prickling warily. It had almost seemed like she was checking for his reaction, waiting for something other than her mother’s bemused laughter. He shivered and tried to write it off as the old house’s drafts.

                  After dinner, the adults shooed the teens away to catch up and headed towards the living room with wineglasses in hand. Desmond led the way upstairs, mentally cataloguing the state of his room. _Did I put those clothes in the hamper?_ He didn’t have long to think about it, though; Lucy stepped neatly into his room and surveyed it with a small, closed-lip smile. Her gaze slid right over the t-shirts and shorts crumpled by the foot of his bed as she stepped over towards his book shelf.

                  “So,” she asked, trailing her fingers along the books’ spines, “ever hear from Altaïr again?”

                  Desmond shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket and shrugged against the doorframe, settling back into his hips like he’d seen Malik do a million times. Somehow, his body didn’t quite fit the pose.

                  “From some creep from when we were little?” he laughed. “Uh, no.”

                  “I’m not an idiot, Desmond,” Lucy answered pleasantly. “Altaïr was as much a man as the devil.”

                  She hadn’t turned around to face him yet, still studying his books.

                  “Lucy, I don’t-” Desmond started.

                  A cool hand on his shoulder silenced him. Altaïr was beside him suddenly, face apathetic and wings looming dark against the walls. Lucy turned, her passive expression dropping with a quiet catch in her breath and a widening of her eyes.

                  “Oh,” she breathed.

                  “Um,” Desmond managed, “uh.”

                  “Oh, shit,” Lucy whispered, “shit.”

                  Altaïr’s hand dropped from Desmond’s shoulder to their side. There was a slight curl to their fingers, like they were seconds away from drawing their sword.

                  “Oh, shit,” Desmond swore. “Altaïr, this is Lucy – she’s a – she’s friend.”

                  Malik shot him a scathingly amused look from where he’d appeared just behind Lucy.

                  “Good friend?” he purred, trailing a loose tendril of her hair through his fingers.

                  She jumped, whipping around with her hands raised.

                  “Malik!” Desmond snapped.

                  “There’re _two_?” Lucy demanded.

                  “I’m just sayin’ kid, if you don’t take advantage of what’s in front of you-”

                  “Jesus Christ, Malik, shut up!”

                  “Desmond, what the hell is-”

                  “Silence,” Altaïr’s voice cracked out, sharp and definite as a whip.

                  The others froze. Malik released Lucy and focused entirely on Altaïr. Desmond would almost say he looked afraid. Lucy’s hands were still up as if she’d punch him, but her focus had twisted around towards Altaïr as well. The angel’s expression was flat and cool as they stepped forward towards Lucy. She didn’t pull back, but her expression stiffened into terrified defiance.

                  For an agonizing moment, they simply stood there, Altaïr’s eyes an eerie gold and Lucy’s fists pressed to the sides of her thighs. Abruptly, Altaïr inclined their head and stepped back.

                  “Mind yourself, Lucy Stillman,” they warned. “I will not hesitate to protect him.”

                  Taking one more step back, they resumed their position against the wall like a soldier at rest. Desmond shot them a shaky look before heading towards Lucy.

                  “Roof?” he suggested.

                  She gave a jerky nod, eyes still on Altaïr. It wasn’t till they’d crawled out onto the roof and she’d settled her back against the wall before her breathing evened out and she managed a quiet laugh.

                  “Friendly,” she remarked. “They always like that?”

                  Desmond shrugged and leaned back beside her. The siding dug into his shoulder blades a little, but it was more comfortable than Altaïr’s electric stance and Malik’s strange wariness.

                  “I mean, they’re not usually that bad,” he explained. “Malik’s kinda’ annoying and Altaïr doesn’t do much, so it’s kinda’ like having siblings. Just…more.”

                  He wasn’t sure how to finish that: more annoying? More frustrating? More confusing? It didn’t matter anyway; Lucy had only ever had him as a sibling to start with. She nodded anyway.

                  “How’d you know? That Altaïr was an angel,” Desmond asked.

                  This time, she hesitated. Her arms wound tight around her knees and her gaze slipped to the side. When she did speak, her voice was quiet and removed.

                  “Just…met some people from the other side,” she replied.

                  Her voice didn’t invite further questioning, and Desmond felt a chill curl down his arms.

                  Inside the room, Malik eyed Altaïr warily. Their expression hadn’t shifted from that not-quite-frown that was nearer to a portent of doom than any bleeding rain. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t smite him, but the tension written into Altaïr’s vessel wasn’t a sign of anything good. He shifted, rubbing his left arm absently, and tried to ignore the feeling of spiders crawling under his skin. It didn’t work.

                  “Fuck this,” he muttered finally and straightened.

                  Before he could take even a step forward, a wing buffeted him against the wall. Malik recoiled, flinching back from the cold burn of grace.

                  “What the-“

                  “You will die,” Altaïr stated, apropos of nothing.

                  Malik froze, eyebrows inching towards his hairline.

                  “Run that by me again?” he prompted.

                  Altaïr paused. That near-frown returned as they tilted their head and stared at Malik.

                  “You cannot-?”

                  Their voice cut out strangely, like someone had reached out and strangled the sound before it even left their throat, and their wings fell slack against Malik’s chest. Their frown deepened, eyes scouring Malik’s face rapidly before they glanced away.

                  “Beyond where you stand is holy ground,” they explained stiffly. “The grace would burn you were you to take a step.”

                  Malik’s eyebrow rose and he turned to survey the room curiously. He could feel the ever-present sting of Altaïr’s grace like a tickling burn he could never quite decide if he liked or not, but he couldn’t feel or see anything else. The two teens on the roof still glowed their brilliant white; no holy cyan glow showed under their skin. 

                  “Gotta’ plan I don’t know about, Feathers?” Malik queried.

                  “The grace will wash her soul,” Altaïr answered, wings folding back in place. “I will know if another approaches her.”

                  “Spreading yourself a little thin with a demon nearby? Risky,” Malik drawled.

                  “You doubt my abilities?” Altaïr asked, the echo of a challenge in their tone.

                  “Well, y’haven’t done shit to impress me yet,” Malik shrugged, lazy.

                  “Of course,” Altaïr answered. “Perhaps I should bring down the stars to appease you.”

                  There was the faintest tension around their lips, as if they were trying to smile but had gone centuries without using those muscles.

                  _-child’s play,” they scoffed._

_Altaïr laughed, star-studded –_

The world spun, Malik’s head suddenly too heavy and too light all at once. For an instant, there was fire around him, a great snarling circle of flames licking at his calves. It vanished when he blinked.

                  “You flirtin’ with me, Feathers?” he teased, half a count too late. “A fella’ could get ideas.”

                  The latent good humor in Altaïr’s expression vanished, swallowed whole in a heartbeat. Aching despair replaced it, but only for an instant. Then it was replaced with a full, deep frown and downturned lips pressed thin as if Altaïr’s vessel had just realized there was a whole spectrum of displeasure it could show. Malik huffed a sigh and settled back against the wall with his arms crossed. Maybe the pressure would be enough to keep his mind from flying to pieces.

                  “It really hurts that bad to lighten up?” he prodded, sour.

                  As much as he didn’t like to admit it, he’d gotten used to a lot of things about Altaïr over the past couple years: the chafing burn of their holy presence, their fiercely protective nature towards Desmond. The constant buzz of something missing – something _lost?_ Well, he hadn’t quite gotten used to that.

                  “Kids!” Sarah called from below.

                  The pair jolted as if hit with cattle prods, their expressions a comic mix of guilt and disappointment. Lucy released her knees with a sigh and slid back through the window. Desmond followed.

                  “I’m not going to run into them tomorrow as teachers or something, right?” Lucy asked, one hand on the doorknob.

                  Desmond laughed.

                  “Nah,” he promised. “You shouldn’t even notice them.”

                  Something seemed to ease in her then, and she gave him an impulsive hug before joining her parents. Desmond and Sarah waved them off before she turned to him with a smile.

                  “Crazy, isn’t it?” she laughed. “I never would’ve thought we’d run into one of your old families out here.”

                  “Yeah,” Desmond agreed, “crazy.”

                  He smiled, shaking his head slightly, and returned his mom’s hug before heading back upstairs. Whatever surprises the future had in store, he doubted the disappearance of homework was among them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh sorry this is so slow in updating.


	8. Chapter Seven

                  “So, you ever meet the guy?” Desmond asked, struggling with his blue-and-yellow tie. “Jesus, I mean.”

                  Easter had dawned cloudy and humid, with Malik who-knew-where and Altaïr staring through the window. They’d relaxed from there into an absentminded parade rest while Desmond got ready for church.

                  “I did not meet the man,” Altaïr answered, “but I have worked closely with the angel for whom he was a vessel.”

                  Desmond’s eyebrows skyrocketed as he twisted around towards Altaïr. They’d talked about vessels, once, when Desmond finally thought to question why an immortal soldier of God looked like a hipster fitness instructor. Now, though, his thoughts buzzed to an abrupt halt.

                  “Jesus was a vessel?” he demanded.

                  Altaïr nodded.

                  “All those miracles…?” Desmond prompted.

                  “He was a remarkable man in his own right, but many of his most famous acts were those of an angel,” Altaïr confirmed.

                  Giving up on his lopsided tie, Desmond gave a low whistle. He’d never been religious; having Malik and Altaïr with him at all times made it seem somewhat redundant, especially when they constantly contradicted Scripture. Still, Sarah had grown up Methodist and taken him to enough services that it seemed somehow blasphemous to think of Jesus as little more than a puppet. It did engender a little sympathy, though. Altaïr could be a big enough pain as it was; Desmond couldn’t imagine being trapped in the same body as them.

                  “Must’ve been a pretty important angel,” he remarked off-handedly.

                  He didn’t get a reply, at least not aloud, but the comment niggled at another as he bent to tug on his loafers. Thinking of other angels or demons always created a strange dissonance in his mind: Altaïr and Malik had become so integrated into his life over the past few years that it was easy to forget that they were metaphysical soldiers of good and evil – that they were all part of something much bigger than he even knew.

                   “Is that what the other angels do?” he asked. “Like, do a bunch of miracles to inspire people and then vanish up to Heaven? Or are most of them like you?”

                  “Like me?” Altaïr echoed.

                  Desmond shrugged, double-knotting his laces.

                  “Yeah, you know: babysitting prophets, arguing with demons, not really doing much,” he clarified before straightened and resting his arms on his knees.

                  Altaïr canted their head to the side with a faint, inscrutable mix of emotions on their face as if their typical frown had been interrupted by something Desmond couldn’t quite call amusement.

                  “Most angels are fighting Hell,” they explained, “and you are the only prophet. My duties are unique.”

                  Desmond stopped short a half step from the door. His hand, stretched out to the knob, dropped.

                  “I’m the only prophet?” he repeated.

                  “Yes,” Altaïr affirmed, “and you are going to be late.”

                  Startled out of his confusion, Desmond rolled his eyes and huffed a laugh.

                  “We’re not done with this,” he warned as he pulled the door open.

                  The angel inclined their head slightly in acknowledgment, and Desmond hurried downstairs to the car. Behind him, Altaïr released a soft sigh and felt their grace settle under their vessel’s skin. They’d run out of time to avoid the conversation, they knew, but the thought still made something twist under their vessel’s chest. Slipping out of the physical plane, they let their grace wash over the town and settled in the center to wait. A demon wouldn’t be stopped by the holy ether filling the town, but they would know if one approached.

                  Hours later, one did. Malik’s temperament burn pricked at their consciousness like static and Altaïr resurfaced to find him slouched in the window with a haunted, hunted expression. It sent a cold prickle of apprehension down their spine. _It is impossible ­_ and yet –

                  “I knew you,” Malik stated, a question in everything but tone. “Before.”

                  His slate-blue eyes were narrowed as he stared Altaïr down, as if that would allow him to see the difference between the truth and the angel’s lies.

“Yes.”

Altaïr’s teeth clicked as they bit down on the rest of the sentence. It wasn’t safe – wasn’t right – to say anymore.

“Why – _how_ did I forget? And why am I remembering now?” Malik demanded.

His voice was tight with anger, but the edges were tinged with the sour taste of fear. The pendant around Altaïr’s neck burnt, white-hot and cold as death.

“Grace is inexplicable,” they replied.

Malik’s glare tightened at that age-old evasion, but the rapid tap of ascending feet interrupted him. The door swung open as Desmond and Lucy blew in, still dressed in their church clothes but talking animatedly.

“So, I’ve been trying to track it. It’s hard ‘cause of old records and everyone being called ‘crazy,’ but I think I’ve got a start,” Desmond explained as he bee-lined for his laptop.

Lucy swung the stool beside the desk around to sit in front of the drawers and dropped into it with comfortable familiarity. Her forehead was wrinkled in the way it always was when she was paying attention, and their knees brushed as she leaned in towards Desmond. The spreadsheet Desmond had pulled up was bleeding red, black, and blue like a printer had spewed its ink cartridge haphazardly over a once-neat chart, but Lucy seemed to drink it in as Desmond spoke.

“It’s really hard to find anything,” he admitted. “I mean, this lady was an accountant until she just up and vanished. Then, thirty years later she’s a committed murderer going on about angels and ‘God’s will,’ but she could also just be crazy.”

Lucy laughed a little, nodding in understanding.

“Yeah, that’s not really helpful,” she agreed. “Have you asked Altaïr about any of them?”

Desmond paused, rubbing the back of his neck.

“It’s stupid, but I kinda’ want to do it on my own,” he admitted. “Without their help, anyway. It’s probably – I mean-”

“No, I get it,” Lucy interrupted. “It gives you some…control. Something you can do that has nothing to do with _them_.”

                  Desmond nodded, his frown focused through the laptop screen before he turned towards her.

“Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “That’s – yeah.”

They lingered there a moment, caught in each other’s gaze. Gravity pulled them towards each other, a slow orbit heading steadily towards collision –

“Ah, puppy love.”

 Desmond yelped and Lucy jerked away from where Malik had appeared, draped over their shoulders. Her elbow hit a pencil cup there, spilling half-dead pens and dull pencils across the black-painted wood. Desmond flushed and scrambled to catch the runaway writing utensils while shooting a glare at the smug demon.

 “Jesus Christ, Malik – Altaïr, can’t you just get rid of him?” Lucy demanded.

Malik’s grin only widened as he flicked a cigarette into existence and straightened. Altaïr didn’t move from their spot against the wall. _Fucking useless,_ Desmond swore.

“Both of you just get out,” he ordered, stumbling over a pair of pencils by his chair. “And stay out!”

He knew he’d overfilled the cup, but he was sure there hadn’t been this many pencils in it.

Lucy laughed and knelt down to help fetch the runaways. It took a few minutes, and by the time they’d succeeded, Desmond was sure Malik was responsible for the number and evasiveness of the pencils. They squeezed them back into the cup, and Lucy braced it with a paperweight and photo frame. Her hand lingered a moment, a small smile pulling at her lips. The picture was almost two years old now, from back when she’d first moved. In it, both had their lips pouted to hold bushy mustaches in place and Lucy balanced a monocle over her right eye.

 “We need to get a new picture,” she announced.

Desmond laughed, following her gaze.

“I don’t know, that’s kind of a masterpiece,” he teased.

She jostled his shoulder with her own, grinning.

 “Yeah, whatever,” she laughed. “You going to Prom?”

“Yeah,” he affirmed. “Jenny and I are. You?”

The corners of her lips tightened ever-so-slightly, but Desmond couldn’t tell why.

“Yeah, Shaun asked me. You know him, right? Shaun Hastings? He’s in AP Chem with me,” she answered brightly. “But we’ll have to meet up and get a picture.”

Desmond’s smile dropped and he shifted to save his work before shutting down his computer.

                  “Yeah, I’ve met Shaun,” he allowed, “but yeah, we definitely should.”

                  Lucy smiled, a little too bright.

                  “Great! Oh, shoot, that’s my mom – she’s probably been waiting. Sorry! See you tomorrow,” she chattered, scooping up phone and jacket in one fluid movement.

                  Then she was out the door, darting down the steps to the SUV idling in the drive. Desmond followed her down, waving an awkward goodbye before sidestepping his mom to trudge back up the stairs. He had an ACT study book unopened on his desk and a binder’s worth of homework in his bag, but all he could really summon the motivation to do was kick himself. For what, he couldn’t quite say.

                  “You are so damned blind, kid,” Malik drawled.

                  Desmond exhaled and forced himself not to pinch the bridge of his nose. The demon was sprawled uncomfortably close to Altaïr, but the angel seemed to be successfully ignoring him. Their gaze was distant and vacant, like the angel had run away and left their vessel in place. _Jesus Christ, can’t they act normal?_ Both of them had been twitchy and odd all year, flinching at the slightest noise. Desmond was sick of the tension and confusion.

                  “Hasting’s gonna’ get the prom of his pasty white life, and you’re gonna’ be stuck with that little Christian cunt,” Malik drawled.

                  “Shut up,” Desmond muttered with too little heat.

                  “Bet she’s got-”

                  Desmond straightened, twisting with his hand still on the half-closed computer lid. Malik was gone. Even after a quick search of the room, he only found Altaïr.

                  “Uh,” he managed. “Where’d Malik go?”

                  “Yemen,” Altaïr answered absently, flicking an ember off their palm. It burnt to nothing before it touched the carpet. “He’ll be back.”

                  Desmond paused a moment before deciding it wasn’t worth pressing. He’d gotten stranger answers from the angel before. Releasing a sigh, he glanced up with a rueful half-smile.

                  “Kinda’ dumb to have girl problems when you’re a ‘Prophet of the Lord’ and all that,” he laughed

                  Altaïr’s lips twitched like they’d thought of smiling for a heartbeat. It was brief and nearly imperceptible but still left their face a little softer, kinder than usual.

                  “You have not read much mythology, have you?” they answered.

                  Desmond laughed, and his gaze dropped to settle temporarily on his laptop. Shaking his head, he pushed the screen flat and nudged his chair all the way in.

                  “Hey, this morning – you said I was the only prophet and that you were ‘unique,” he started, turning around. “What’d you mean by that?”

                  Altaïr hesitated and Desmond’s eyes narrowed. He said his next words with careful attention to the angel’s expression.

                  “And what’s an archangel?”

                   Altaïr’s expression didn’t change entirely, but there was a flicker across their face that had Desmond watching closely.


	9. Chapter Eight

_The pair paces, neither wanting to strike the first blow and both wanting to strike the last. After the last year’s urgency, they can draw this moment out. However it ends, it will be the last time they see each other, and even after everything, they are still brothers._

                  Invisible on their periphery, Desmond squirmed. He’d decided a long time ago that it was impossible to ‘get used to’ prophetic dreams, but something made this one worse. It was hard to tell whether that was because of the mental presence of two archangels or the way every fiber of his metaphysical being _hurt_.

                  _“I wish we didn’t have to do this,” Lucifer admits._

If he squinted, Desmond could almost see the faltering in resolve, the pleading in the devil’s eyes. _Let us put this behind us, let me come home, let us be brothers once more._

_“Yeah. Me too,” Michael agrees._

_“Then why are we?” Lucifer asks, wheedling. “We want the same thing, Michael. Why don’t we work together?”_

_Michael stiffens._

_“I want God’s Will,” he snaps. “I want what is_ right. _”_

_“You’re the Merciful, Michael,” his younger brother urges. “You aren’t Altaïr. You don’t have to do what is ‘right.’”_

_“I’m sorry,” Michael answers, and for a moment, it seems genuine – but then he straightens and braces himself, “but I have my orders.”_

Desmond jolted awake with sweat tacky on his too-hot skin. His breath rushed in and out, chest aching with the force of his gasps. _Fuck, fuck, fuck it’s not real it’s not_. Forcing himself to slow his breathing to counts of ten, he gradually relaxed until he could drop back against his pillow.

Moonlight caught on the flat planes of his desk and windowsill, but shadows still pulled long in the corners. Beside his bed, his alarm clock flashed _1:57_ in scarlet. His heart thudded like he was buried alive, and his breath trembled on the exhale. Whatever the dream meant, it had thoroughly done away with sleep for the night.

“Shit,” he muttered.

                  He’d ended up sitting on the foot of his bed for most their conversation, gaping at Altaïr. Then, he’d been more shell-shocked than afraid. A few hours were enough to change that, though. It suddenly seemed too real, too pressing. Altaïr was just a cool weight in the back of his mind, but somehow that tickle of grace made everything else brighter in contrast. Where were they, now? Finland? Saudi? _Jupiter_? ‘Archangel’ had been one thing when it was just another word bandied about by Altaïr and Malik. It became something else entirely when it was the divine wrath of God made manifest.

                  Suppressing a shiver, he tugged his throw blanket up from the foot of his bed to his chest. Altaïr was…Altaïr. Awkward, emotionless, well-meaning – maybe. They only kind of wrath they showed was the bloody kind, when Malik went too far. Even that hadn’t happened in years.

The cold pressed gently against Desmond’s neck, and he pulled the blankets a little closer. Altaïr as anything else was inconceivable. Somehow, the thought wasn’t as comforting as he’d hoped.

                  Across the globe, Malik reclined on a hillside while a village burnt at its foot. It had stood peaceful and not-quite-prosperous when he’d arrived from his imposed trip to Yemen. Now, only corpses and some hapless sheep were Malik’s company to watch it burn.

                  He knew, of course, he’d been an angel. Of some sort, anyway. He had vague memories of wings, stronger ones of them being ripped from his back. Every once in a while, he’d remember a few words from an old Enochian refrain before the words burnt to acrid ash in the back of his throat. He’d grown used to the sooty taste of these. It was nothing compared to the strange new recollections coming now.

                  Snatches of Altaïr unbound by any form, snippets of old motions he must have once completed – and always, always, the hollow ache of something, _someone_ , missing. Broken piece by broken piece, they crawled up into his memory and settled like six pieces of a thousand-piece puzzle with only a single corner. That the corner happened to have twelve wings and a name that sang of death didn’t exactly comfort him.  

                  Leaning back on a distant slope, he watched the fire burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so brief!


	10. Chapter Nine

                  The two returned, of course, and Altaïr seemed as nondescript as ever. Within a short while, it was easy for all those startling revelations to drift into the back of Desmond’s mind. Sure, he knew that Altaïr could probably level a city block without a thought, but it was hard to think of that when they stood barefoot in a nubby grey t-shirt all the time.

                  Besides, there were more pressing matters on his mind.

                  “It doesn’t bother you? At all?” Malik probed.

                  They both sat near the roof’s edge, though Malik was halfway between sitting and lying down. The angel shot him an unimpressed glance. They’d been watching the sky since before they left the high school, gaze distant and focused. Given their charge’s adamance that they stay out of his room, Malik had had little choice but to stay next to the preoccupied angel.

                  “How many virginal prophets do you recall, Malik?” Altaïr queried.

                  “Joan,” the demon offered.

                  “Aside from those with no interest in it,” Altaïr amended.

                  Inclining his head slightly, Malik conceded the point. He couldn’t claim to remember all the once-and-future prophets, but he doubted Altaïr would lie about something so petty.

                  “You ever miss it?” he asked.

                  Altaïr’s wings rustled as they shifted and refolded into neat stacks. There was a double-exposure every time Malik looked at them, like the glossy feathers were overlayed with shots of star-streaked sky.

                  “Eden?” the angel asked.

                  “Yeah,” Malik confirmed. “Y’know, holy-holies and all the Host.”

                  The angel was silent for a moment, expression unreadable. They lifted their hand and pulled a trio of stars into their palm with a short gesture. The three rotated a few centimeters over their hand, bright and real as the sun though they didn’t cast off enough light to illuminate even Altaïr’s hand. Watching them, Malik forgot to watch the angel’s face.

                  “Not as it now exists,” Altaïr answered finally.

                  Their hand closed into a fist around the stars, extinguishing their light effortlessly. Malik blinked. He hadn’t expected that tiny show of grace or its rapid destruction.

                  He glanced up in surprised.

                  “Huh?”

                  “Do you?” Altaïr repeated. “Miss Eden.”

                  There was a low, urgent undertone in their voice that made the hairs on the nape of Malik’s neck bristle. The demon scoffed and lounged back on his elbows, tilting his head towards the sky. It was heavy and brooding, thunder giving an occasional rumble, but no drops had fallen yet.

                  “C’mon, would I have left if I missed it?” he drawled. “You don’t exactly get a ‘come back anytime’ on your way down.”

                  The reminder made his back itch, but it was easy enough to ignore. The sensation that he was lying? Yeah, that wasn’t so easy to ignore.

                  “You did not leave of your own accord,” Altaïr replied.

                  _Yeah, thanks for that._ He remembered being ripped away from his home and all the screaming agony that entailed – he didn’t need a reminder. Poking around it, trying to remember the why and the when, was like sticking in his finger in the epicenter of a compound fracture: the pain blotted out any details.

                  “Call me adaptable,” Malik replied. “What do you care anyway? You kicked me out.”

                  Altaïr’s expression flickered, half-seen in the low light. They fell silent, and Malik settled back while he shuffled the memories back from the forefront of his mind.

“What’s with the sappiness tonight anyway? You that broken up about your little holy boy’s big milestone?” he asked eventually.

As expected, the angel’s muddled expression shifted into a familiar pinched look. Just like that, they were back on steady ground.

                  “Sex is not a milestone,” they retorted, “and I am not sentimental.”

                  Malik grinned, lolling back into this comfortable exchange.

                  “Yeah, yeah, wouldn’t want to lose your reputation. What’d happen if people knew the angel of death got choked up about his little boy getting laid?” he prodded.

                  “They would think you an idiot,” Altaïr sighed, long-suffering.

                  The _and they’d be right_ went unsaid.

                  “C’mon, when’s the last time any of them saw you? I’m your closest link to the other planes,” Malik declared.

                  It was supposed to be lighthearted, a clear joke. Instead, Altaïr’s expression tightened and atrophied, and a chill ran down Malik’s spine. He leaned forward to get a better view of the angel’s face. Six pairs of wings shuffled and refolded, aborted in their attempt to block his view.

                  “Wait, you really haven’t seen any of them?” he demanded. “What about your angel radio? Where’s the chatter?”

                  “What do you care?” Altaïr answered, a bitter echo. “You left it behind millennia ago.”

                  “I care if I’ve gotta’ hang around you being a moody novice,” Malik retorted.

                  Altaïr didn’t reply, and Malik let the silence stretch until he finally relented and shifted to sit upright.

                  “Look, I don’t give a shit about Upstairs, but you’re not the only invested in this kid, okay?” he admitted.

                  His voice came out sharp and terse, the admission more than he wanted to give.

                  Altaïr’s lips thinned and twisted in an expression Malik couldn’t decipher. Red-hot chills raced down Malik’s back, and some tiny part of his soul scream ‘run.’ He didn’t, of course; something always drowned out that hint of logic when he was around Altaïr. He had the funniest feeling that it had been there long before he traded his halo for hellfire.

                  “Of course,” Altaïr snapped. “We wouldn’t want you to lose an investment.”

                  Malik recoiled. The angel’s wings had flared like a dog before a fight, but they were angled forward and up rather than at Malik. Whatever was pissing the angel off, Malik was pretty sure it wasn’t him.

                  “No, we probably don’t, since he’s your fucking prophet,” he retorted.

                  “And that is cause for your interest? That he is a prophet?” Altaïr spat back.

                  It was disorienting, dizzying, the way Altaïr seemed to be arguing on a level in which Malik wasn’t even a player. Every time he tried to see what they were arguing, it slid out of view like an aura floating in the corners of his eyes.

                  “What, you think it’s you?” he sneered. “You think you’re that special?”

                  The words were out before he’d thought them, lies slipped silver through his lips. The wind died, the clouds rolled back, Altaïr’s wings dropped. It was done – whatever it had been.

                  “Altaïr, what the hell is going on?” Malik demanded.

                  Altaïr was quiet as their wings folded tightly to their back. The sky was slowly bleeding itself of color, going pale and paler grey.

                  “Altaïr?”

                  The angel turned to him, gold eyes flat and amber.

                  “Protect your investment, Malik,” they ordered.

                  Then he was gone, and the sky stutter-startle-fell back into place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun dun dunnnn


	11. Chapter Ten

                  Desmond woke to an empty room and silence. Sunlight spilled over his bare skin, and he stretched languidly. Jenny had left for work a few hours earlier, but her residual warmth lingered in the sheets beside him. He released a contented sigh and blinked his eyes open drowsily. It had been a very good –

                  He stilled, frowning. _Where is-?_ There was no humming weight against the back of his neck, no cool presence in the back of his mind. For the first time in years, Desmond could feel no hint of Altaïr’s presence. _Altaïr?_ A bird trilled outside his window but no answer came. Desmond rolled onto his back and swung his legs over the bed before reaching for the first clothes he found.    

                  “Altaïr? Malik?” he called. “Guys? You can come out now.”

                  Nothing.

                  _They’re just fucking with you. It’s fine._ It did nothing to slow the rapid thudding just behind his ribs. His fingers tightened, white-knuckled in his hoodie’s limp fabric.

                  “Guys! Knock it off,” he snapped.

                  He’d never been – since the accident, Altaïr had always stayed – even Malik –

                  “Whoa, kid, take a breath,” a familiar voice drawled behind him.

                  Desmond’s shoulders slumped, tension draining from him as if he’d sprung a leak. He turned to find Malik leaning slack-backed by the window.

                  “What the hell?” he demanded. “What were you doing – playing hide-n’-seek?”

                  “Twister,” the demon corrected, “naked.”

                  Desmond rolled his eyes and shrugged on his hoodie. No matter how many centuries or millennia or eons Malik had lived, he never seemed to have matured past welve.

                  “Right,” he agreed drily. “Let me guess: Altaïr’s just packing up the mat?”

                  Something shifted funny in Malik’s expression, and Desmond felt his stomach clench and sink.

                  “Malik?” he asked.

                  “Birdy flew the coop,” the demon reassured, lazy and amused. “Just getting’ some holy oil to dunk you in.”

                  “Uh-huh,” Desmond allowed slowly.

                  He allowed himself a brief moment to consider it before stopping himself. _There’s no way._ Altaïr would have to have an opinion, first, and they’d kept a pretty flat score of zero on that front. Even their reprimands had a hollow ring to them, as if they couldn’t bring themselves to care. Brushing the thought away, he headed downstairs.

                  “So, really, where are they?” he called over his shoulder.

                  Malik slouched along beside him and gave a half-hearted shrug as Desmond dropped off the last step.

                  “Probably Upstairs,” he answered. “They don’t tell me shit.”

                  Desmond froze with his hand half-extended towards the bowl cabinet to turn towards Malik.

                  “’Upstairs’? Really?” he said before shaking his head. “Nevermind. I shouldn’t be surprised.”

                  Malik frowned faintly, but Desmond was already reaching for a bowl to fill. Altaïr would be back. Of course. They never left for long. Even if this was the first time he couldn’t at least feel the angel, it wasn’t any different. There was no reason for it to be. Altaïr’s absence still itched like a phantom limb.

                  “You didn’t kill him, did you?” he demanded halfway through his bowl.

                  Malik choked on a laugh. He was leaning back against the counter, and he resettled with his arms crossed.

                  “Trust me, kid, there’s only one fellow who can kill Altaïr, and it ain’t me,” he replied.

                  Desmond frowned but paused to swallow before speaking.

                  “What d’you mean?” he asked.

                  “Is this another of those things they told every goddamn soul except you?” Malik asked, unimpressed.

                  Desmond shrugged and scooped up another spoonful. There wasn’t much point in reminding Malik that it had taken over a decade for Altaïr to tell Desmond they were an archangel. They were about as forthcoming as a statue. Malik huffed a long-suffering sigh and dropped his hands back against the counter. His left flexed absently, as if it had fallen numb.

                  “Altaïr, angel of death, Grim Reaper, etcetera etcetera,” Malik explained. “You can’t kill Death unless you’re God.”

                  Desmond paused, stared at him, and started laughing.

                  “Yeah, right,” he scoffed, scooting his chair back.

                  He’d rinsed his bowl and balanced it back in the dishwasher before realizing Malik hadn’t replied. Releasing a resigned sigh, Desmond straightened slowly and threw up his hands.

                  “My guardian angel’s the angel of death,” he relented. “Why the hell not.”

                  He bit out a breath and closed his eyes. One day, one day, he would ask a question and get a normal answer, something small as the question asked. No more cosmic mysteries, no more divine royalty. Just normal.

                  “I’m going to shower, and then you’re going to explain,” he instructed.

                  The demon rolled his eyes at the vague gesture accompanying the command but didn’t object. His skin was itching, buzzing, and he pinched at the inside of his left wrist to try to force some feeling back in. It just kept falling asleep. By the time Desmond returned in jeans, a t-shirt, and wet hair, the demon’s arm was red. Desmond didn’t seem to notice as he tossed his clothes into the hamper and straddled his desk chair.

                  “Okay, you and Altaïr. And don’t give me the bull shit about Egypt – I know it isn’t true,” he demanded.

                  Malik shrugged, rolling a cigarette between his right fingers.

                  “We _were_ in Egypt,” he insisted. “Altaïr was getting their smite on and I was tallying up the souls.”

                  He picked at the cigarette.

                  “We used to work together,” he continued. “I decided I liked the view from below a little better, they sent me on my merry way, and we ran into each other a few centuries later. Not much else to say.”

                  _That I can remember, anyway._ It wasn’t worth bringing up his patchy memories and questionable mind. The kid was talking to a demon; he had to know nothing said was guaranteed.

                  “You two used – you were an angel?” Desmond prompted.

                  Malik scoffed, an ugly, scarred laugh.

                  “Human souls don’t exactly stand up to hellfire, kid,” he replied. “And they sure as hell don’t have the mentality for Legion. Ninety-nine out of a hundred souls down there got the same feathers as up above.”

                  Something in his voice sent a shiver down Desmond’s spine. He ignored it and forced himself to focus.

                  “And you two worked together?”

                  “It’s entirely to blame for me going to Hell,” Malik replied. “That bastard could drive the Old Man himself up the wall. I was – sorta’ their handler, I guess. Principality.”

                  He paused to fit the cigarette between his lips. Desmond was frowning down at his hands, like they held the questions he wanted to ask. Malik waited. When the question finally came, it wasn’t what the demon expected at all.

                  “How come – why’s somebody like the archangel of death stuck watching over little old me?” Desmond asked, voice small. “They said they don’t even see other angels much, but they’ve gotta’ be pretty important, don’t they?”

                  _Aw, shit._ Malik swallowed and took a long draw on the cigarette to stall.

                  “The archs – they trade off on prophets,” he explained. “Michael gets one, then Altaïr, Ezio, son on. Ezio, Connor – they’re more partial to you guys, but they all get shifts. Altaïr just got you, I guess.”

                  “Oh,” Desmond murmured.

                  His gaze slid through his desk’s top, distant and unseeing.

                  “And they – they don’t get much say?” he asked after a moment.

                  Malik squinted at him in confusion.

                  “About which prophet they’re watching…?” he prompted.

                  “No, I mean,” Desmond broke off and rubbed the back of his neck before continuing, “If I told Altaïr to jump off a bridge or something – would they? Do we-?”

                  The demon scoffed around his cigarette.

                  “ _Please_ ,” he muttered before adding, more clearly, “Altaïr does what they want. No way in hell one measly prophet’s gonna’ change that.”

                  Desmond’s expression eased, a derisive laugh huffing out of him.

                  “More like what ‘God wants’,” he retorted, voice mocking Altaïr’s.

                  Malik exhaled a quiet laugh with a curl of smoke and pushed away the thoughts of a bleeding-black sky and burning rain. _What God wants_ , he thought and pushed away a shudder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's updated! Yay! I'm sorry this chapter is lame; my ability to write is even more limited after spending the entire afternoon writing. But hey, I rediscovered this and want to finish it, so, there's hope?


	12. Chapter Eleven

                  Altaïr came back after three days. There was no lightning, no herald angels: Desmond came home from school and the angel was leaning against the wall while Malik slouched beside them. It was as if they’d never left; they wore the same grey t-shirt, the same worn jeans, the same bare feet. Beside them, Malik looked like he’d gone five rounds with a screaming toddler and lost, but Altaïr looked fresh and inhuman as ever.

                  “Have a nice vacation?” Desmond called as he pulled out his desk chair.

                  He wasn’t looking for an answer, but if he had, he would have found it in the shiver that broke through Altaïr’s too-tight posture. Malik flinched.

                  “Hey, Malik, what was that idea you had, again? For the senior prank?” Desmond prompted.

                  “With the PA?” Malik asked.

                  His voice was hoarse and brittle, charred by fire. Desmond didn’t seem to notice as he studiously ignored Altaïr to interrogate the demon. Malik answered as much as possible and carefully skirting around the answers Desmond didn’t know to ask for.

                  He didn’t say that Altaïr landed on shaky feet with grace spilling over the sides. He didn’t say that it sent Malik listing out of his own vessel, tattered wings screaming as grace burnt through their never-healing wounds. The walls had warped around the singularity between them, and paint had blistered away from the walls even as frost crawled over the window. He didn’t say that, when Altaïr went to speak, the mirrors and windows had shattered and Altaïr had frozen with something like fear on their face. He didn’t say that he had had to conjure up a glamour because Altaïr’s control was too shaky to hide the bone-deep burns oozing over their vessel.

                  He kept his mouth shut and told himself that he was only watching Altaïr because he was concerned about himself. It wouldn’t end well for him if the archangel burst their vessel, after all.

                  He’d been better at lying to himself, once.

                  It wasn’t until Desmond got ready to meet up with some friends and Altaïr stood to follow that Malik spoke up.

                  “No,” he announced, unwavering and stubborn. “You’re staying here.”

                  Altaïr’s face was void, amber eyes flat. Malik braced himself, waiting to be smote by sword or grace.

                  “You’re about burning out of your vessel,” he said, “and you owe me answers.”

                  ‘Owe’ was relative, of course; what angel could really _owe_ a demon? On its own, it was a dangerous word to use with Altaïr, anyway. Altaïr merely conceded with a slight incline of their head, though. Desmond’s car was already coated in protective sigils; Malik had made short work of it once he realized Altaïr really had left. He wouldn’t call it panic, but it had been done quickly.

                  “I-” Altaïr started.

                  Their mouth clamped shut, jaw working and brow furrowed.

                  “Roof?” Malik suggested.

                  Altaïr gave that jerky nod again, and Malik shoved open the window before clambering outside. It was awkward and graceless to finagle Altaïr’s broad wings through, but Malik wasn’t about to risk teleporting. Altaïr’s grip on their vessel was shaky enough without pulling them out of the physical plane. Thankfully, the angel’s strength was still apparent as they pulled themselves up to their regular perch.

                  Malik folded himself before Altaïr, cross-legged, and peeled away his glamours. Human flesh gave way to flame-singed night, gaping holes showing nebulae crumbling and stars fading out. Altaïr’s arm rested limp in Malik’s left hand while he pulled the sides of the wounds together with his right. His fingertips sizzled against the barely-contained grace, his blood dripping down to seal the edges. Altaïr didn’t seem to notice. They stared straight ahead, over Malik’s shoulder.                

                  “I remember doing this,” he started.

                  The silence had a strangehold on them and he wanted – needed to break it. He needed to say it, to see how insane he’d really become.

                  “You were bleeding everywhere,” he continued, “but you wouldn’t see Connor. I don’t – I don’t know what you’d done, but I swear you’d have just kept going if I didn’t stop you.”

                  He couldn’t remember why he, of all of them, had been able to stop Altaïr. He had been a lowly principality, nameless in the grand scheme of things. He could only remember Altaïr shaking to pieces beneath his hands, the star-studded black he’d stitched together then like a double-exposure over the angel’s vessel now. He blinked and it cleared. Altaïr was still silent, although fine tremors ran through them now. Malik cleared his throat and went on.

                  “There was one time we were – I don’t know for sure, but it wasn’t here. It was beautiful, and-” Malik broke off.

                  His words tangled and faded in the face of that great beautiful black. He couldn’t find any language to suffice.

                  Altaïr’s gaze was intent on Malik’s face as their flesh knit itself back together. Their grace had steadied, settled into its usual shape.

                  “What do you remember?” Altaïr asked.

                  Their voice was soft, hanging on the answer like the last raft from a sinking ship.

                  “I remember-”

                  _Wings wrapped around him, grace curling cat-like around his own – dwarfing it and pouring around them with the languid grace of water; peace – and something like –_

Malik wet his lips, swallowed.

                  “Nothing,” he lied, turning away. “Fragments.”

                  Something shifted in the grace at the tips of his fingers, something hollow and aching like grief, like loss.

                  “They’ve found the Righteous Man.”

                  Malik jerked around. Altaïr’s gaze was lowered to where Malik’s hand was white-knuckle-tight around their wrist. Stars danced languidly under their skin, swirling slow and drugged just beneath the dermis.

                  “What?”

                  Altaïr said nothing.

                  “You mean, Revelations, ‘the end is nigh,’ Righteous Man?” Malik demanded.

                  “The great day of their wrath is coming,” Altaïr answered rotely.

                  Malik blinked and stared. The tremors had gone, leaving Altaïr strangely still, and their wrist was slowly cooling under Malik’s too-tight grip. 

                  “Altaïr?” Malik managed, voice breaking strangely in the middle of the word.

                  “It is our Father’s will,” Altaïr said, like a plea, like a prayer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lookit that - two updates in less than six months! (I'm so sorry)


	13. Chapter Twelve

                   _Blood drips, steady, slow – he can feel each heartbeat pulse it out._ I’m going to die _, he thinks, wondering. The night sky stretches overhead, gaping and empty; there are no stars shining now_. It’s funny, _he muses._ I always thought it’d end in flames.

                  Desmond jolted awake, choking on his first gasping breaths. His skin was too hot, shivers breaking out across his clammy skin. His breaths were too fast, too hard, and he couldn’t get them through his throat. Finally, finally, his lungs inflated and his diaphragm relaxed out of the paralytic lock it’d held.

                  It only took a moment to spot Altaïr silhouetted by the window. Their wings were visible only in Gestalt-like sketches of moonlight against the feathers, and Desmond didn’t see them either breathe or blink. It was like watching a statue, a gargoyle poised over a church door, ready to fend off any intruding fiend.

                  “Altaïr?” Desmond asked.

                  His voice was tentative in the still of the night. The angel’s head turned towards him, faceless in the shadows. Desmond hesitated as he tried to work around questions he wasn’t sure how to ask. _I’m scared,_ he wanted to say. _Help me. Tell me it’s okay. Lie to me._ He clenched his teeth against the entreaties. He was eighteen – twelve hours away from graduating and moving onto the adult world. He wasn’t a kid anymore, couldn’t beg for that comfort without it echoing back at him, mocking and brittle.

                  But he needed something, and the long shadows of his room were welcoming and safe.

                  “My dreams – are they – are they real?” he asked, voice thready and thin.

                  Altaïr was silent.

                  “I mean, I know the whole ‘prophet’ deal – but in stories, they’re always breaking prophesies and stuff. I just – are they-” he broke off, hands gesturing uselessly.

                  “Inevitable,” Altaïr finished.

                  Desmond’s shoulders slumped. He’d assumed, but – well, there was a saying somewhere about the stubbornness of hope. Altaïr’s wings rustled, and Desmond looked up. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Altaïr almost looked…agitated.

                  “I do not-” they broke off, wings shifting and resettling. “I am a soldier. My duties are to guard you and to shepherd souls from this plane. They are not to question.”

                  They paused, and Desmond frowned.

                  “But humans have ever been unique for their free will,” they finished, quietly – like saying as much was crossing an uncrossable line.

                  “Oh,” Desmond managed.

                  He glanced down towards his hands, something warm easing the knot in his chest and a small smile of gratitude pulling on his lips. They were both silent for a few minutes, a comfortable, easy quiet. Things had been strained between them for the past few weeks, ever since Altaïr returned from his mysterious disappearance, and Desmond had missed being able to talk to the angel.

                  “Hey, Altaïr? What’s heaven like?” he asked after a while.

                  The air tightened, like breath caught in a massive set of lungs. Then, slowly, shuddering, it released.

                  “It is…ineffable,” the angel answered.

                  _‘Ineffable’?_

                  “I dunno’ about you, but I don’t have a dictionary on me at the moment,” Desmond remarked, dry.

                  Altaïr shifted, wings resettling against their back. They were staring out the window, again, but this time, their chest rose and fell with steady breaths and their wings rustled with absent movement. They were a Gollum, called to life.

                  “It is unique for-” he cut off. “We do not all see it the same. We see it in a manner-”

                  The words were awkward and clumsy, like trying to explain eternity to an ant. They broke off with a click of teeth. Their wings had flared, illuminated face darkened by a frown. They released a hard breath.

                  “For many, it is a palace,” they explained. “It is lavish and ornamental. There are similarities to your cathedrals.”

                  Desmond tilted his head slightly. It made sense, or at least, it fit what he’d always been told about heaven. Then, he caught the first part of what the angel had said.

                  “But it’s not that for you,” he guessed.

                  He barely caught the small, painful smile that twisted Altaïr’s lips.

                  “No,” the angel replied. “It is not.”

                  Their voice was heavy and aching, like they were speaking of some cherished possession lost long ago. Desmond bit his lip, heavy guilt spoiling in his stomach. It was all too easy to remember the reluctant confirmation Altaïr had given when Desmond had begged them to stay.

                  “If you – you don’t have to stay if you don’t – if you want to go back,” he offered.

                  The words came out half-hearted and needy, and he winced as he said them. Despite his best attempts, he couldn’t drown out the way his heart begged _stay stay stay_. Trying to imagine life without the angel’s solid presence was impossible; it sent his stomach spiraling down a sickening curl of fear. Those three days had been hell. An entire life? He couldn’t stand to picture it.

                  Altaïr’s wings settled, smooth and still on their back, and they took in slow, easy breaths again.

                  “I cannot go back,” they replied, like a revelation.

                  Swallowing hard, Desmond turned his gaze back to his hands and found down the guilt and confusion that churned like slush in the pit of his gut. _I’m sorry_ , he thought, but it did nothing to abate the curdled twist in his throat.                           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what I just love? AO3's spastic indentations.
> 
> ANYWAY. I somehow completely forgot to upload this chapter? Sorry!  
> CH13 is already finished as well and I'm working on CH14, so hopefully we'll get closer to this being done before I head to college.
> 
> To anyone still reading this, I'm so sorry for my inconsistency with this fic, but thank you so much for hanging in there! I really appreciate it.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

                  Summer stretched out before Desmond like evening sunlight: languid and golden with the illusory promise of eternity. Three months was a lifetime when he didn’t have to return to high school come fall.

                  Of course, that was somewhat stinted by all that he did have to do. A part-time job at the grocery store morphed into twenty-five hours a week, and daily homework was traded for a stack of books to be read by the start of the semester. Somewhere between that and his late night TV marathons, his summer started slipping sand-like through his fingers.   

                  “Have you heard from your roommate yet?” Rose asked.

                  They were both on the couch with the TV playing some procedural drama in the background and neither paying attention. Rose had been fighting with a design all week, and she was finally polishing out some of its problems. Desmond had made the questionable decision to change his phone’s lock pattern right after getting up that morning and was struggling to remember the new one.

                  “Not yet,” he admitted. “My advisor said I might not till late July when acceptance is finalized.”

                  Rose frowned.

                  “It would be nice to know,” she mused. “You don’t want to end up with two of everything in your dorm.”

                  He hummed an absentminded agreement and tried a final combination on his phone. Finally, it opened.

                  He didn’t think much about his mysterious roommate for the next few weeks. He was busy with work and reading and impromptu get-togethers with his friends. Somewhere in there, he and Jenny broke up, genially and almost idly; one minute they were ice cream on a park bench as a couple and the next they were eating ice cream on a park bench as exes. When Desmond asked if they should return the gifts they’d gotten each other, Jenny laughed.

                  “It’s not like taking something back to Wal Mart!” she replied.

                  He shrugged and laughed as well. It was simple in its vagueness: they still talked, still sent each other random links on Facebook – they just were no longer a ‘we.’ Within a month, a mutual friend was trying to set Desmond up on dates, and no one asked after his girlfriend for the rest of the summer. Desmond wasn’t sure, but he suspected it was Jenny’s doing.

                  For some reason, the whole thing nettled Malik like nothing else. The demon had seemed to be in a daze ever since Altaïr returned, but the break-up seemed to reanimate him.

                  “You didn’t even fight for it!” he complained.

                  “Well, yeah,” Desmond replied, “it was kinda’ mutual.”

                  “But-“

                  Desmond sighed and twisted around towards the demon.

                  “Not everything’s gotta be a fight, Malik,” he replied.

                  The demon’s lips pursed, brows lowering over an accusing glare he sent towards Altaïr. The angel leaned against the wall, like a robot shut down and stored away, the same way they had spent most the days since their return. Not for the first time, Desmond had the feeling they were talking about two different things at once.

                  “Some things should be more of one,” Malik muttered.

                  He vanished. Desmond blinked, mouth partly open to tell him to make up with Altaïr already. Only the scent of Malik’s acerbic cigarettes lingered, though, and he turned back to his laptop with a sigh.

                  A hop, skip, and a plane away, Malik hunched in on himself and glared down at the souls streaming like streaks of light below. These had a softer, dirtier glow than Desmond’s, but they weren’t fully tainted yet; that would come once they reached their destination far, far below. Beside him, another demon leaned back against her palms and watched as well. Singed wings sprawled out behind her, neat and well-groomed except for the sooty scars scorching them.

                  “It’s bullshit,” Malik grumbled.

                  She hummed.

                  “It’s angels,” she replied. “What do you expect?”

                  Malik didn’t bother asking how she knew what he meant; he’d given up on that a long time ago. Maria wasn’t anywhere directly in his chain of command, but they’d bumped into each other some centuries ago and stayed in each other’s orbit ever since. Something whispered in Malik that he knew her, that he could trust her, even though he knew you couldn’t trust any demon, even one with neat grey wings and an understanding that ran deeper than memory. It didn’t quite stop him from leaning into her, relying on her support to tell him when he had well and truly lost it.

                  “What the hell are they gonna’ do without the planet?” he scoffed. “Run back to Eden and hope Daddy finally lets them in?”

                  Maria shook out her wings before folding them tidily against her back. There was a slight hitch in the motion, like an old injury acting up. She didn’t seem to notice.

                  “Death isn’t confined to one planet – or even one universe. As for the rest?” she released a quiet sigh. “I don’t know. They’ve never seemed that dedicated to living.”

                  Malik scowled.

                  “Ezio,” he pointed out.

                  He wasn’t a hundred percent on the name, but it seemed right, seemed to recall a lazy-easy grin and wide open hospitality. Maria’s slight, conceding nod confirmed it.

                  “He’s always been more human than angel, I think,” she replied.

                  They fell silent, the meat of the conversation hanging like a guillotine over their heads. Malik willed a cigarette out of the ether, rolling it with habitual ease. Maria stared off beyond them, her forehead creased in thought.

                  “I think they’ve always viewed this as temporary – getting kicked out of Eden and told to protect Man,” she started abruptly. “I mean, look at ‘em. Except for Altaïr and Ezio, they burn through vessels like matches. They’re just fucking around, waiting for Dad to let them back in.”

                  Her teeth grit briefly, like she was holding back the rest of what she wanted to say. She ran a hand back through close-cropped brown hair and heaved a sigh.

                  “I don’t know how much you remember, Malik. I couldn’t read you before, and now it’s just a mess,” she said. “I’ve been trying to just keep you out of this, keep an eye on you, but I can’t anymore. I can’t do it all.”

                  Her shoulders had tensed, feathers ruffling up as if they would protect her.

                  “What the hell does that mean?” Malik demanded.

                  Her wariness was catching, prickling into his system like a fever. She turned towards him with an unwontedly solemn expression. Her brown eyes were narrowed, fear a faded nuance within them.

                  “Look, Malik, I can bring the cavalry; there are plenty of veterans down here who aren’t satisfied with management, but I can’t touch Altair. That’s your job,” she explained. “You’ve got to figure that out on your own.”

                  He stared at her.

                  “Figure out what? How to stop the Apocalypse?” he demanded.

                  Tension was writ into every tendon and ligament in Maria’s frame, and her jaw was set.

                  “Looks like,” she agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What? A demon trying to stop the Apocalypse?? It's almost like the author's a huge fan of Good Omens.
> 
> Ahem.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

                  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” Desmond moaned.

                  He hit refresh again, but the screen stayed the same. _Roommate assignment: Hastings, Shaun; History major._ He slumped back in his chair and dragged despairing hands down his face.

                  “I have the worst luck ever,” he whined.

                  Malik scoffed from across the room and slouched back against the stairs. Maria’s warning had proven exactly as helpful as it first seemed: not at all. Altair remained lethargic and dull-eyed, and Malik couldn’t remember any more than fragments and splinters no matter how hard he tried. He hadn’t seen or heard from Maria in the month since, and some deep-buried instinct had concern prickling up and down his spine. He ignored it, like he tried to ignore her unhelpful words. _Stop the Apocalypse. Bull shit._ That was for the heavy hitters – the arch angels at least, the Big Guy more accurately.

                  Beside him, Altair stood at loose-limbed parade rest, gold eyes dull and flat. Malik eyed them, trying to see where the defeat had come from, where it had snuck in and snuffed out Altair’s spirit. He couldn’t.

                  “Hey, Mom,” Desmond called.

                  “Don’t yell, Desmond,” she answered from the open back door.

                  He sighed and dropped his chair to all four legs before moseying towards the door. Rose was reclining on her elbows on the back patio, a book splayed over her stomach and face tilted towards the sun. Desmond smiled, an involuntary tug at the happy expression on her face. She glanced over her shoulder with an eyebrow raised as he leaned nonchalantly against the doorframe.

                  “So, what would you think about a single roo-”

                  “Nope,” she answered, turning back to the sunlight. “I’m not paying for a single. Who’s your roommate?”

                  “Mom, it’s _Shaun Hastings_ ,” he objected.

                  “Mm, always good to have a friendly face,” she hummed.

                  “He’s not _friendly_ ,” he grumbled.

                  “It’s a good learning experience,” Rose answered with finality.

                  Desmond huffed and heaved himself back into the house. After a few more seconds spent glaring at the computer screen, willing it to change, he glanced over at the angel and demon leaning against the stairs. He opened his mouth.

                  “No.”

                  He recoiled. Altair hadn’t moved, but their expression had hardened slightly.

                  “I didn’t say anything,” Desmond complained.

                  Altair didn’t reply. _What the hell?_ They had never had a problem fixing a burnt-out lightbulb, cleaning an unwashed hoodie, or wiping a virus from his computer.

                  “Really?” Malik demanded, dry as salt. “You’re willing to fight _this_? Giving the kid a decent roommate?”

                  He tossed his hand up, fingers starting to form some strange gesture. It froze. Malik stared, blank-faced. Desmond forced his mouth shut. Altair hadn’t moved an inch. They still leaned against the stairs with hands empty at their sides. Malik twisted around, hand still stuck straight out ahead of him.

                  “What,” he managed, the inflection somewhere in limbo between question and statement.

                   Altair didn’t reply, but Malik’s hand slowly lowered. His brow furrowed, utter incomprehension in his narrowed eyes.

                  “Guys?” Desmond prompted.

                  “It is as it is to be,” Altair replied.

                  Desmond stared, disbelieving, but they didn’t waver and Malik didn’t speak. Rolling his eyes, he closed up his laptop and headed upstairs.

                  “Any more life advice while you’re at it?” he grumbled.

                  They didn’t respond, and he trudged up to his room in silence. Malik watched until he vanished into his room before turning on Altair. The angel didn’t meet his gaze; they were staring through the table and tile floor below it once again.

                  “Want to explain what that was about?” Malik demanded.

                  He rubbed at his arm, trying to force feeling back into it. The tingling had only worsened after Altair froze it. It was happening more and more often, losing feeling whenever he wasn’t paying attention.

                  “They are meant to be roommates,” Altair answered.

                  “Yeah, ‘cause a computer’s stopped you before,” Malik scoffed.

                  “I do not-” Altair stopped, brow furrowing.

                  For the first time in a month, Malik felt like Altair was paying attention again. Their gaze was focused, intent, on Malik, and he could almost see the light being drawn back into their eyes. Then their gold eyes shuttered to a flat amber again and the air began to move with the summer breeze. Malik clenched his teeth on a scream.

                  _Why? Why the hell are you doing this?_ The words ached at the back of his breastbone, like pressure building and building without any vent. _‘You’ve got to figure that out on your own.’_ But what if he couldn’t? What if he was too small, too late? He hunched against the staircase, arms folded tight across his chest. Altair wasn’t going to give him any answers, but he didn’t know where to look.

                  Afternoon faded to night, and night began its slow click towards dawn. At a quarter to midnight, there was a knock on the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I definitely thought this was longer than it was. Sorry.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

                  Desmond stumbled down the hall, rubbing his eyes, but neither the demon nor angel needed an open door to see their visitor. Lucy was nearly vibrating, her soul agitating and grating against itself like a hive of bees. Malik stared.

                  “ _Lucy_?” Desmond asked blearily.

                  She offered a quick, sharp smile. It wavered slightly, as if, for the first time in her life, she wasn’t quite sure of herself. When Desmond didn’t say any more, she swallowed and licked her lips. Her weight shifted towards the balls of her feet as if she was prepared to run.

                  “Hi,” she greeted.

                  “What are you – it’s nearly midnight,” Desmond said.

                  “I – I know,” she admitted.

                  She shifted her grip on the backpack strap slung over one shoulder. Desmond blinked, processing its presence slowly as his brow furrowed into a sleep-baffled frown.

                  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have come,” Lucy apologized. “I’ll just go.”         

                  She turned, already stepping down off the stoop, but Desmond’s hand shot out to stop her.

                  “Wait! It’s – it’s okay. I mean, I-” he broke off, expression shifting into a tired look of entreaty. “Come in?”

                  They were the words she’d been looking for: the tension washed out of her shoulders and she turned towards him. Desmond padded down the hallway, careful to keep his steps quiet on the wood floor. Rose was asleep behind a closed door a floor above them, but she woke at a breath. Lucy followed, her worn tennis shoes as quiet as his socked feet.

                  The TV was still playing the same procedural Desmond had left on, but neither teen even glanced at it. Lucy dropped her backpack beside the couch and sat gingerly on the opposite end as Desmond. She perched like a bird on a powerline, seconds from flitting away, and her gaze slid carefully, neutrally, over the framed photos on the walls and buffet. She looked like a guest, just visiting, rather than one of his oldest friends. Desmond swallowed hard.

                  “You want anything to eat or drink?” he offered, pleaded.

                  Lucy was methodical and pragmatic. She was the one who had studied diligently for tests and then aced them and trained steadily in everything she ever did. This random appearance and aching uncertainty scared Desmond.

                  “Oh, no, I’m fine. Thanks,” she answered.

                  Her smile was as instinctive as his question and nearly plastic. He nodded and let the silence stretch taut between them a while longer.

                  “So, what’s up?” he finally asked.

                  “Oh, the usual,” she lied with a smile. “Work, college, all that. Just the-”

                  She broke off with a brittle laugh.

                  “God, sorry, why am I doing that?” she scoffed. “No, it’s not the usual I – do you still keep pizza rolls around?

Rolling with the non sequitur, Desmond shrugged and stood.

                  “Yeah. You hungry?” he asked, heading towards the kitchen.

                  “Famished,” Lucy laughed.

                  It was easy and familiar: Desmond grabbed the rolls from the freezer, Lucy arranged them mandala-like on the plate, and he punched the time in on the microwave. The familiarity seemed to soothe Lucy; she hopped up onto the counter by the sink as usual, and Desmond dropped into a kitchen chair. Part of his brain was working like mad to figure out why she was suddenly here, but most of him was too tired and dimly happy to worry much. It had been so long since they’d just hung out, without the excuse of homework or the press of significant others. Something in his chest eased and warmed with her presence.

                  “You’re going to State, right?” Lucy asked abruptly.

                  Desmond shrugged and nodded.

                  “Becca and Shaun are, too,” she mused. “Seems like you should have some company.”

                  He grimaced. It was hard enough to forget his future roommate without being reminded.

                  “Yeah, there’s a lot of us going, I guess,” he agreed. “Where are you going again? Sorry, I know I should know.”

                  Lucy laughed, a pretty, hollow peal. When she looked at him, it was with a soft, amused smile and a funny look in her eyes.

                  “I’d be surprised,” she replied. “And I’m not sure.”

                  “What?” Desmond demanded. “It’s July!”

                  “Yeah,” she laughed.

                  “Are you taking a gap year or…?” Desmond prompted.

                  There was something careless in her expression and body that had the nape of his neck prickling.

                  “Something like that,” she affirmed with a nod. “I need to get some answers.”

                  Her expression had firmed into one he knew well. It was the one that said she’d made up her mind and nothing, not Hell, not Heaven, not anything in between, would stop her.

                  “What do you mean ‘answers’?” he asked.

                  He’d leaned forward by now, back taut as a wire. She canted her head slightly, and Desmond felt a flicker of déjà vu. He’d seen Altair do the same thing, with that same thoughtful expression, too many times.

                  “Do you remember when we first moved here and came over for dinner?” she asked.

                  Her hands cupped the counter’s edge, feet swinging childlike back and forth.

                  “Yeah,” Desmond said.

                  _How could I not?_ Even if Altair’s strange behavior hadn’t left a mark, it was the first time she’d come back into his life after nearly a decade. It wasn’t an event he was likely to forget.

                  “I think I said something about meeting some supernatural…elements,” she continued, hesitant.

                  “You didn’t say much,” Desmond admitted.

                  She glanced away, biting her lip.

                  “It was – maybe four years after you left, I think, I had a run-in with…something,” she explained. “It tried – it used me.”

                  Somewhere, vaguely, Desmond knew Malik and Altair were nearby. He couldn’t make himself look for them. Lucy took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders.

                  “Like, possessed you?” Desmond asked. “Like a demon?”

                  Her frown deepened.

                  “I don’t know. It was – it was like being chained to a comet or something. It _burnt_. It used me to hurt people, and I could see and feel it all, but it wouldn’t stop no matter how hard I fought – I tried _so hard_ ,” she paused to draw in a breath before continuing. “I think it would have killed me if Altair hadn’t stopped it.”

                  “Altair?” Desmond echoed.

                  Lucy’s lips quirked in a one-sided smile, and she glanced over at him with her eyebrows lifted.

                  “You really thought I remembered them from one encounter when we were five?” she asked.

                  He flushed and rubbed the nape of his neck.

                  “I guess, I just – I mean, what were they-”

                  The microwave broke in, shrill as a siren. Desmond leapt up to silence it, and they didn’t speak for a few moments as they shuffled the rolls out and onto a plate. Desmond hissed as one burnt his finger, and Lucy stifled a laugh. Once they were all set, they resettled in the living room with the plate between them and Lucy’s feet tucked under the couch cushion.

                  “So what was Altair doing there?” Desmond prompted.

                  He had one roll in hand but kept blowing on it to cool it off. Lucy had popped hers into her mouth whole and shrugged as she chewed.

                  “I think – I don’t know. Maybe ‘cause we’re friends?” she offered.

                  Desmond bit into the roll and frowned while he chewed. Altair had never seemed even slightly sentimental, but maybe they’d take care of Lucy. They’d done enough favors for Desmond over the years. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know how Desmond felt about her.

                  “Yeah, maybe,” he agreed.

                  Lucy smiled and snagged another roll. She leaned back as she bit into it, tension eking out of her frame.

                  “You can’t see Altair, right?” she asked. “I mean, you see them but you don’t – you see their vessel.”

                  Desmond bobbed his head in a bemused nod. She inclined hers, gaze going distant.

                  “I can see  _them_ ,” she stated.

                  He blinked before squinting at her. Old words came back to him, questions and vague answers. ‘ _You see what your mind is able to comprehend.’ ‘Ineffable.’_

                  “I wish you could see them for real,” she sighed. “It’s…”

                  “Ineffable?” Desmond guessed.

                  Lucy laughed, refocusing on him.

                  “Oh, I see that ACT practice helped,” she teased.

                  “Shut up,” Desmond laughed, grinning. “I have my moments.”

                  He’d looked it up the morning of graduation, but she didn’t need to know that.

                  “But, yeah. It’s beautiful,” she said. “Terrifying.”

                  Desmond breathed a quiet laugh; he had no doubt about that second one.

                  “Yeah?” he asked.

                  Lucy glanced over, a smile pulling up at her lips.

                  “Yeah,” she agreed.

                  It wasn’t the last thing she said to him. She stayed till five and they talked the whole time, but somehow that stuck with him after she said goodbye, after he watched her small frame walk alone into the night. When the news reported Lucy Stillman missing, he felt his stomach sink, but there was no surprise.

                  Maybe he should have asked her more. Maybe he should have made her stay. Maybe, maybe.

                  He went to college, and Lucy Stillman became another tragic girl in the Midwestern news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry for the massive pain in the ass this fic is. I promise, I'm going to finish it. I just can't promise how quickly. If it's any consolation, I have started Ch16!
> 
> Thanks so much for hanging in there with me! As always, if you want to chat, I'm on tumblr at curiosity-killed18. Lots of love, y'all.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dun dun dunnnn

                “Jesus, Des!” Rebecca laughed, sloppy in her third beer. “You’re going to be here forever.”

                  “Says the girl with every STEM major,” Desmond teased.

                  “’s not every one,” she protested. “Just three!”

                  Desmond laughed, wiping down the counter. The bar was busy but not overrun. Most the regulars were settled in by now, and it was too late for many newcomers to wander in. Desmond checked to make sure Rebecca was set before walking down the rest of the bar.

                  Both his guardians were easy to spot. Malik was half-curled around a broad-shouldered man with blue eyes and a quick grin, the demon’s lips a breath away from his ear. Desmond lifted his eyebrows but kept walking to the very end. Altair sat stiff and still, as much a fixture as the cabinets. There was a half-full bottle between their hands that Desmond swapped out with a new one. Altair never finished any. They just sip and sip like they had eternity to savor just one. _Which, I guess they do._

                  “Doing alright there?” he asked out of habit.

                  He wasn’t sure how it’d started, this play pretend. Somewhere in the past three years there’d been a shift he could neither name nor place. Maybe it had to do with the way Altaïr had seemed to shrink in on themself, wings crumbling into ash and grace vanishing on the wind. Desmond couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen those starry feathers or that silver blade. For all intents and purposes, Altaïr was nothing more than another body on campus, maybe an assistant professor in an obscure subject. No one seemed to notice them, and they didn’t acknowledge anyone else.

                Altaïr glanced up, giving a curt nod. Normally, Desmond would leave, satisfied, but this time he lingered. It was late, anyway, twenty minutes till close. He leaned his forearms on the counter and relaxed against it.

                “Y’know, that outfit’s starting to get a little shabby,” he teased. “Might be time to retire it after, what – seventeen years?”

                “They are my vessel’s clothes,” Altaïr answered.

                Desmond paused. They’d never really talked about Altair’s vessel, for whatever reason. He couldn’t say if it was out of some strange respect for whoever had once inhabited the body or if it was because it was easier to not think about it. Either way, he’d never bothered.

                “What were they like? Your vessel?” he asked.

                Altair glanced up, as if surprised, and they hesitated a moment.

                “He was stubborn,” they answered slowly. “Very stubborn – but loyal and…loving.”

                A small smile pulled at Desmond’s lips at the angel’s quiet description. He tried to picture the man they described, but he had too few pieces.

                “Did he have a family?” he asked.

                Altair’s brow furrowed slightly, their fingers tugging at the label on the bottle. It peeled away in a strip.

                “His parents died when he was a child, and he never had siblings,” Altair explained. “His wife died in his arms.”

 _Jesus Christ._ Desmond’s eyes had widened, the smile vanishing into horror.

                “But there were,” Altair paused, as if they were struggling with the words. “There were some he loved very much and who loved him in like.”

                It filled in some of the spaces, painted around the scar bisecting the vessel’s lips and the finger missing from his left hand. A rough man, maybe, a man who had lived a hard life and come out not quite whole but still standing, still moving forward. Desmond swallowed before asking his next question.

                “Was he happy?”

                Altair refocused on Desmond, hands stilling. They were silent a long while, enough to make Desmond itch and wish he hadn’t asked. At least then he wouldn’t have this heavy, knowing gaze weighing on him.

                “Eventually, yes.”

                Their gaze dropped, resettled on the bottle between their hands, and Desmond rocked back into his heels. _What does that even mean?_ He didn’t know what he’d expected, but Altair’s answer left something hollow and sick just behind his ribs. _‘Eventually’? After how much?_ Once he would have asked, would have pressed an answer from Altair, but he didn’t any more. There were days now, when he felt he’d imagined those brief years where Altair seemed to have a personality, a soul. They came more and more frequently as the days went on.

                He glanced over towards Malik, seeking some relief, and froze. The blonde was fidgeting, tongue tip flitting out to wet his lower lip, while Malik had turned the smarm up to eleven.

                “What’s Malik doing?” Desmond asked.

                “Making a deal,” Altair answered.

                The softness, the warmth in their voice had flattened into apathy. Desmond’s chest gave a pang, but he brushed it aside. Altair had stopped being anything more than a guard a long time ago.

                “Uh shouldn’t you be stopping him? Angel?” Desmond half-laughed.

                Altair took a slow pull from their beer.

                “In ten or fifty years, they will die anyway,” they replied.

                Desmond stared. The vague warmth that had welled in his chest drained rapidly.

                “What the hell happened to you?” he demanded.

                He turned before Altair could utter an excuse and stalked back along the bar. A hard rap on the counter broke up Malik and his mark’s low, urgent conversation. The man was flustered and pale, eyes a little too wide for the way Malik had been wrapped around him. Malik only looked annoyed.

                “Hey, Malik, c’mere,” Desmond called.

                The sour expression on the demon’s face suggested he knew exactly what Desmond was doing. He followed anyway.

                “You can’t let me have even a little fun?” he whined.

                “Since our resident angel’s out of the game, no,” Desmond answered over his shoulder. “Here.”

                Malik accepted the flat of cans with pressed lips and lowered brows. Desmond sighed, settling his hands on his hips. He was used to these sulky silences, but that hadn’t stopped him from trying.     

                “You gonna’ finally tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

                 “Got shit-all to tell,” Malik muttered, turning back to the door.

                “Yeah,” Desmond breathed, watching him go, “right.”

 _Three years_ , he thought. _Three fucking years._ It would have been easier if there hadn’t been that distinct transition, if everything hadn’t changed after Altair disappeared. Then he could just write it off as their personalities, but there was no way to avoid knowing when exactly Malik’s evasiveness and Altair’s emptiness had appeared.

                Releasing a gusty sigh, he grabbed a second flat and headed back to the front. Malik helped restock in a reluctant, sullen silence, and by the time they’d finished, the last customer had trickled out the door. Desmond yawned and grabbed the rag and spray to wipe down the counter.

                “Hey Des, I’m gonna’ head out,” Sophie, the night’s waitress, called.

                “Yeah, have a good weekend,” Desmond replied.

                The bell jingled as she left, the door clattering shut behind her. Desmond finished off the counter and turned to clean the mixing area. Malik had slouched back onto a stool, and Altaïr still sat where they had all night. Aside from the quiet clunking of the hoses and bottles Desmond cleaned, the building was silent.

                Desmond hefted the trash bag up and pushed back through the storeroom to the dumpster. The hair on his arms stood on end at the wash of frigid air, and he shivered. He tossed the bag in and then paused, glancing around the empty street. His breath puffed white into the night air, a crystal fog against the blue-black sky. It was cold for October, and the first frost was already creeping over the browning grass and orange-gold leaves. A streetlight flickered, sputtering like a sparkler. He shivered and turned back inside.

                Behind him, the streetlight choked into black.

                “Hey guys, you ready?”

                As he bent over to scoop up his bag, the bell over the door chimed and a breath of cold night air whisked in. Desmond sighed and dropped his bag’s strap. He knew Sophie had flipped the sign to close an hour ago, and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone too drunk to read it.

                “Sorry, man, we’re closed,” he called as he straightened.

                The newcomer was slender, just a bit taller than Malik but with a similar, wiry build, and bundled in a tailored peacoat and red scarf. When they turned towards Desmond, it was with a small smile and big, wide blue eyes. A shiver ran through him.

                “Now, you wouldn’t throw an old friend out in the cold, would you?” they suggested.

                There was laughter in their tone, like an inside joke curling cold in their chest. Along the bar, Malik was livid and Altair was frozen.

                “Sorry, do I know you?” Desmond asked.

                They ducked their head and chuckled softly. When they looked up, their smile had curled at the corners, Cheshire-like.

                “Well, it has been a while,” they admitted like an indulgence, “but Altaïr, surely you remember me.”

                The angel’s gaze was empty, piercing the bar walls and a thousand leagues past. Between their hands, the beer bottle hung in suspended animation: the shards were still in the shape of the bottle, the liquid frozen in place. The intruder clucked their tongue in faux-disappointment.

                “Come now, you can’t have forgotten your baby brother?” they purred.

                Their arms were extended like an invitation to a hug, but there was something cold in vicious in their smile. Desmond could feel pressure building behind Desmond’s eyes, like someone was digging their knuckles in, in, in. Altair stood slowly, bottle still sitting in interrupted entropy behind them. Their face was blank and void, Malik pale and strained. His hands had clenched into white-knuckled fists. Desmond faltered back half a step. His head throbbed. The newcomer glanced at him, unconcerned, before refocusing on Altair.

                “You should not be here,” Altair said.

                The newcomer’s face shifted into exaggerated hurt, and a slender hand flew up to their chest.

                “Oh, brother, you wound me,” they gasped. “Haven’t you missed me?”

                 “You should not be here,” Altaïr repeated.

                Their posture was rigid and taut, like all the tendons and ligaments were strained to their limit, but they hadn’t reached for their sword or shown any hint of wings. The newcomer’s arms dropped like a puppet with cut strings, and they chuckled. Their grin was a vicious, razor-edged slash; though their teeth were blunt and neat, it did nothing to prevent the visceral impression of a shark. Goosebumps pricked across Desmond’s skin.

                “Funny, I remember last time going a little differently,” they drawled. “It was only a few years ago. I think – wait a minute, was that when I got this lovely meatsuit?”

                Their big blue eyes had narrowed, the façade splintering off them in shards. Spots floated floated blue-and-gold in front of Desmond’s eyes. ‘ _A few years’?_ It could mean anything – from three to a thousand. _What’s going on?_ Malik was trembling, tan skin washed an icy white, and fear ran like ants under the nape of Desmond’s neck.

                “Oh, you must remember that,” the intruder purred. “You can’t have forgotten a fuck-up that big – not when it got your wings clipped like this, stuck playing house with humans.”

                They spat the word like something rotting, haughtiness spoiling into sneering disdain. Altair was silent, though electricity seemed to run live under their skin. The intruder’s expression shifted back to condescension.

                “But this – the dynamic duo back together, and you’re only missing one piece? I never thought I’d see the day,” they chuckled.

                A low level buzz had started, just tight and high enough to hurt. Their voice wobbled in and out of Desmond's hearing.

                “Tell me, Malik, what have they made you forget?” they purred.

                The room was going dark, black spots crowding out Desmond’s vision.

                “What are you doing here, Lucifer?” Altair demanded.

                Their voice was a growl, thunder crashing in undertones. The intruder chuckled ruefully.

                “Of course, straight to business as always,” they laughed. “See, this is why we work so well together. You do exactly what you’re supposed to, and I – well, I bring the style.”

                Chairs were rattling against the tables, the walls creaking as in a strong wind. Desmond reached for the counter as he felt himself sway. The wind screamed outside the window. Altair’s sword still hadn’t appeared. The intruder slid their hands into their pockets with a lazy smirk.

                “Consider this your…six weeks’ notice,” they called, raising their voice above the chaos with ease. “Michael would never be so generous.”

                The last was said like a taunt, a barb as sour as sulphur. They vanished in a curl of sooty-black smoke. Desmond gagged, knees buckling. The beer bottle shattered. The world went black.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What, another update? Y'all gotta' be sick of me by now.
> 
> As always, I love all y'all's comments and ideas. Hope you're enjoying this so far!


	18. Chapter Seventeen

                  Glass shards were embedded in the walls, beer splattered across the counter. Altaïr didn’t seem to notice; they walked straight to Desmond’s crumpled form without looking to either side. Malik watched, shivering and aching. He remembered – he remembered.

                  “What the hell?” he finally asked.

                  He’d thought it would come out angry, come out raging. Instead, it came out fragile and scared. Altaïr didn’t answer. Their hand was at Desmond’s throat, then passing over his face. The storm still raged outside, but rain now drowned it out and thunder cracked in time with the lightning rather than its previous syncopation.

                  “Why’s Lucifer up here?” Malik asked.

                  The angel slid their arms beneath Desmond’s crumpled form and stood. He looked like a sacrifice, an offering to an apathetic god. Fear curled sick and cold under Malik's breastbone. He wanted to throw up.

                  “Altaïr, you didn’t-” he pleaded.

                  Thunder boomed and lightning flared. Black wings were wrapped around the room, six sets curled in towards Desmond. For the first time, Malik could feel Altaïr’s grace, washing in and out like waves, like blood pumping in and out of a heart. It burnt, it soothed. It felt like a raw wound opened and sealed over and over. Altaïr met Malik’s eyes with an even, flat gaze.

                  “I learned my lesson,” they answered.

                   “Then what the hell’s Lucifer doing out of the Cage?” Malik demanded.

                  The grace faltered, a slow-motion stutter that burnt through Malik’s chest like agony.

                  “I don’t know,” Altaïr admitted.

                  The breath washed out of Malik and then he was being pulled -stretched -

_“-can do it. I can fix this-”_

_“It’s madness. You’re-”_

_frustration determination a pulsing bleeding_ hurt

_“Altaïr-!”_

                  - Earth returned with a thud and a stumble. They were outside Rebecca’s apartment, the door half-open with her standing within it. Desmond still lay limp in Altaïr’s arms.

                  “Um, what’s going on?” she asked.

                  One hand was reaching behind her for the knife on the table just beyond the door. She kept an easy, bemused expression as her fingers closed around the handle.

                  “We need your help,” Altaïr stated.

                  “Uh-huh. Sorry, fellas,” Rebecca laughed uneasily. “I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m going to ask you to let Desmond go and leave.”

                  “I cannot do that,” Altaïr replied.

                  Her grip tightened around the knife.

                  “I’m giving you one chance,” she warned. “After that, I’m not gonna’ apologize.”

                  “You do not understand,” Altaïr replied. “I cannot leave Desmond. It is too dangerous for both of you.”

                  She had a good grip on the knife, a confident one that made Malik wonder how long she’d been trained. _Hunters do start young_ , he acknowledged as he ducked her first blow. He was tired, slower than he should be, and the blade came near enough for him to read the runes carved into its serrated blade. _Aw, fuck. Enochian?_

                  He dove back, and the knife continued through the air. A silver arc and a sick squish - the black handle protruded up from the junction of Altaïr’s neck and shoulder. Rebecca held it there a moment, quick eyes searching for a reaction in Altaïr’s impassive face. She stumbled back when none came, real fear flickering into her eyes. Altaïr reached a hand up and pulled the knife slickly from their flesh. There was no blood: their flesh was unblemished.

                  “What the hell are you?” Rebecca demanded.

                  Thunder crackled through the building, and feathered shadows loomed across the hall. It didn’t quite match Altaïr’s form, like there were too many arms or too few wings, but Malik couldn’t place the disparity between the solid vessel and the amorphous grace before the image vanished.

                  “I am an angel of the lord,” Altaïr said. “We need your help.”

                  Her hands were still braced against the far wall, but her mouth had settled into a firm line as she studied Altaïr. They flipped the knife over and extended it hilt-first towards her.

                  “Please,” they said. “Desmond needs your help.”

                  She hesitated a moment longer before slowly reaching out to take the knife from Altaïr. They relinquished it readily, sliding their arm back under Desmond’s body. Rebecca still looked as if she’d shoot the moment they made a funny move, but she didn’t back away.

                  “You’re an angel,” she repeated flatly.

                  She said it like a line she’d heard as a child – like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were real. There was no belief in her voice.

                  “And you’re...?” she prompted, turning towards Malik.

                  “Malik,” Altaïr answered. “A friend.”

                  Rebecca’s eyes narrowed, brow settling into a scowl. _Oh boy._ Malik stifled an exhausted sigh.

                  “I meant _what_ , not who,” she corrected.

                  “Angel’s southern cousin,” he replied. “Now, can we-”

                  She lunged forward, knife aimed for his chest. A hard wind buffeted her back, washing over Malik’s face like a breeze. Altaïr hadn’t moved, but Malik could feel long primaries brushing against him like a shield. He tried to ignore the way his throat choked shut at the touch.

                  “You call a _demon_ a friend?” Rebecca hissed.

                  “Much as I love the banter,” Malik said, “we got bigger fish to fry.”

                  She didn’t budge.

                  “What kind of angel hangs around a demon?”

                  Her weight was steady on the balls of her feet, knife still aimed at Malik.

                  “He is a friend,” Altaïr replied firmly.

                  “So what, he’s Crowley, you’re Aziraphale?” she scoffed.

                  “Excuse you, I am far more competent than-” Malik started.

                  Altaïr released a sigh and shifted Desmond’s limp body pointedly. The motion jerked Rebecca’s focus back to them, and she hesitated only a moment longer before stepping back and opening the door wide.

                  “Fine, but one wrong move-” she warned.

                  “We get it, you’ll send us screaming,” Malik sighed, strolling past.

                  “You don’t have a clue,” she muttered.

                  The apartment was the same bland eggshell as all college apartments, the only décor a handful of snapshots and posters tackied to the wall. A snowboard leaned against a desk with three computers humming atop. A streetlight shone through the lone, narrow window. Altaïr ignored it all. They walked to the futon in the center and laid Desmond down as gently as a babe.

                  “What’s wrong with him? You never said,” Rebecca asked as she closed the door.

                  “He is in shock,” Altaïr answered. “He should wake soon.”

                  Rebecca was frowning again, lips pressed into an unhappy line.

                  “From what?” she pressed.

                  Altaïr was silent for a long moment, their four-fingered hand resting on Desmond’s forehead. They straightened stiffly, like a toy soldier with too-new joints.

                  “An angel tried to attack him,” they explained.

                  _What? Why didn’t-?_ Concern and fear crept cold up the back of Malik’s neck. Desmond shouldn’t have felt anything, not if Altaïr had protected him. And if they hadn’t – well, then they had bigger concerns than shock.

                  “What? Why?” Rebecca demanded.

                  “Desmond is…important,” Altaïr answered. “They likely believed they would find answers with him.”

                  Malik’s eyes narrowed. Altaïr had never been all that good at lying, at least as far as his patchy memory served to tell, but they had plenty of practice with omitting the truth.

                  “If it was an angel, why didn’t they just ask you?” Rebecca asked.

                  Desmond jerked upright, hand clenched around empty air.

                  “Esiasacahe caeso ol adagita condico oi. Caeso, gen ge conisa-” he pleaded.

                  Altaïr flinched. _Please, brother -_ the words weren’t quite a memory, but Malik knew them. He’d heard them once before. He shot a glance towards Altaïr and shivered. Something hungry and aching haunted their eyes.

                  “Shh, Des, it’s okay,” Rebecca soothed. “Shh, you’re safe. You’re in my apartment. You're safe.”

                  She’d sat immediately, hands coming up to grip his shoulders. The contact seemed to ground Desmond, and he shuddered as the Enochian faded from his lips. He blinked, expression lost.

                  “Becca?” he asked.

                  “Hey there,” she greeted. “You alright?”                             

                  He turned towards Altaïr and Malik, then froze as Rebecca followed his gaze. She seemed to catch his confusion and forced a laugh.

                  “Yeah, so I met your regulars,” she offered.

                  “Oh, God,” Desmond groaned, burying his face in his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re: what Desmond says when he wakes up - it's absolute gibberish. I was all dedicated to having real Enochian and then I opened fifty bajillion translators and dictionaries, and apparently Enochian doesn't have either "please" or "fix." Which could be a really interesting statement on the relationships of angels/god that I want to investigate later. Unfortunately, those were basically the most important words in the sentence, so I modified Latin words to fill in. What it means, in made-up-Ellie-Enochian-Latin-hybrid is: "Brother, please, we can fix this. Please, don't make me-" 
> 
> So this is my 2015 NaNo, so hopefully that means it'll actually get finished! (No promises, unfortunately: I'm at about 25k right now and still have no clue when that end is coming. Eep.)
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading and responding! Much love, y'all.


	19. Chapter Eighteen

                  Malik flicked his cigarette through the window, watching the two swap histories on the couch. Rebecca had accepted the existence of angels and prophets without so much as a blink; Desmond, on the other hand, was struggling to believe in monsters and those that hunted them.

                  “You trust her?” Malik asked.

                  “She is loyal and smart,” Altaïr replied.

                  “She stabbed you in the neck.”

                  Beside him, Altaïr gave a slight shrug. Their gaze was focused on Desmond, as usual, the tiniest frown faint on their brow. Malik had gotten used to talking to the side of the angel’s face a long time ago and reading any microscopic expressions found there.

                  “I have borne worse,” Altaïr answered.

                  The spectre of grace ghosted over Malik’s hands, like blue-black ink burning through his skin. He pulled a new cigarette from the ether. It was easier to ignore the shake in his hands if they were busy.

                  “So how come you didn’t protect Desmond from the Big Bad?” he asked as he rolled it. “Didn’t want to hurt your little brother?”

                  If his voice came out a little bitter, well – some memories didn’t become easier to bear just because they were old. He’d been on the short side of Altaïr protecting Lucifer before. He just hadn’t remembered till now. Altaïr’s forehead scrunched, the tiny little furrow deepening with something Malik couldn’t quite place.

                  “Lucifer is powerful,” they hedged.

                  Malik snorted, breathing out a plume of smoke.

                  “Yeah, and you’re the angel of death,” he retorted. “Think the deck’s a little rigged.”

                  Malik waited as Altaïr fell into a turbulent kind of silence. His eyes narrowed, searching the angel’s face.

                  “Unless…” he started before cutting himself off. “No, there’s no way.”

                  He almost laughed at the absurdity of the the thought, but Altaïr didn’t refute him, didn’t counter the query they could both hear in the silence.

                  “Altaïr?” Malik pressed. “You’re – you’re the angel of death, second prince of Eden – you’re _doubting_?”

                  It nearly merited a capital ‘d.’ Altaïr hadn’t doubted when they’d helped send Lucifer plummeting to Hell, hadn’t doubted when they swept through Egypt and slaughtered toddlers and babes – hadn’t doubted when they’d killed Kadar and damned Malik. He didn’t know what it would take to make Altaïr doubt, but it would have to be something huge, something cataclysmic. Something no one else could survive.

                  “Altaïr, what’s going on?” he demanded.

                  The angel’s wings tensed against their back like a shield. The trembled, fine tremors running through them like preshocks.

                  “And don’t you dare give me that shit about losing the right to know,” he warned. “If you’re scared, it’s everybody’s right to know.”

                  “I told you,” Altaïr retorted. “Years ago.”

                  “What - the end is nigh?” Malik said. “Yeah, thanks for that. Real helpful.”

                  Altaïr’s jaw clenched and their wings shuffled, pulled back just before they could flare.

                  “I cannot - it is not my place to-”

                  They broke off with a clench of their jaw and stretched their wings, a quick rush of air past Malik’s face before they folded them close once more. Their face was composed.

                  “It is not my place to judge my orders,” they said like a dusty memory, like gospel they’d never believed. “I am merely a soldier.”

                  “Bull shit,” Malik snapped.

                  He remembered this reversed. Altaïr, arguing that they were more than pawns; Malik, reminding them that they were Legion, that their strength came from the many. In another life, he wanted Altaïr to buckle down under their divine orders. In another life, Altaïr had been the one to rebel. His back stung, throat clenched.

                  “What do you want, Malik?” Altaïr asked.

                  Their voice was subdued, tired and aching. The fire was nothing but wet charcoal, doused with a cold and heavy spray of water. In its wake was only despair.

                  Malik bit down and forced his hand not to reach for the angel. _You_ , he wanted to say. Wanted to grab hold of Altaïr and promise them it would be okay so long as they trusted each other – but it was foolishness, fantasy. Malik could still remember Altaïr’s cool apathy as Lucifer ripped apart Kadar and Malik, as Altaïr sliced through Malik’s wings for their own sins. If they were to take him back now, it would not be out of love.

                  “The truth would be nice, for once,” Malik managed.

                  There was more there, a wash of longing, a strange and unwanted wistfulness. He strangled it. Altair canted their head just-so, watching him as if they could see through his skin to the roiling turmoil beneath.

                  “And if I no longer know it?” they queried.

                  The thought hit Malik like a sucker punch, but he pulled it in and fed it to the anger hot and heavy in his chest. Fear was as good a fuel as any.

                  “Then figure it out,” he snapped. “You don’t get off days.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is such a short one, but since it is (and since I'm on CH21), you get a double update! Yay!
> 
> On a related note, is any one else really freaking confused right now? 'cause I sure am.


	20. Chapter Nineteen

                  “Hey guys?” Desmond prompted.

                  Altaïr glanced up, forcing their thoughts from ancient history to the here-and-now. Beside them, Malik seemed to do the same. Desmond was watching them closely, eyes narrowed.

                  “Is everything okay?” he asked.

                  Lies bubbled up just beyond Altaïr’s lips, and they pressed them shut. They nodded. _Of course._ Desmond eyed them a moment longer before relenting.

                  “You wanna’ explain what the hell’s going on, then?” he suggested.

                  It was said with the same derisiveness as all his questions had these past few years. They’d become less and less common, and when he bothered to ask, he didn’t really expect an answer. Something cold and heavy settled in Altaïr’s chest like guilt.

                  “Lucifer has risen,” they answered. “The seals have been broken.”

                  Desmond blinked twice, mouth opening before clicking shut. He sat down.

                  “Okay,” he said.

                  “That seems like a problem. Like, a big problem,” Rebecca pointed out.

                  _You have no idea_ , Altaïr thought in a voice that wasn’t entirely theirs, not any more. Beside them, Malik scoffed.

                  “So, it’s the ‘end times’ or whatever?” Desmond asked, incredulous.

                  “Nah, Luci’s just out for a stroll,” Malik retorted.

“The raising of Lucifer is one of the signals of the Apocalypse,” Altaïr affirmed.

                  “Jesus Christ,” Rebecca muttered, dropping her head in her hand and muffling the rest of the sentence.

                  It sounded suspiciously like _‘what even is my life?’._ Altaïr didn’t comment.

“What the hell,” Desmond finally said.

                  He was staring at Altaïr, eyes narrowing as he processed the statement. There was a metaphor Altaïr had heard, about a person’s gears grinding. It seemed apt.

                  “So, what - we hit twenty-two and the world goes up in flames?” he demanded. “There’s nothing we can do to stop it?”

                  Malik turned pointedly towards Altaïr, eyes narrowed as if waiting for the inevitable let-down. A memory sprang unbidden to the front of Altaïr’s mind. It wasn’t quite complete: it’d been so long ago, and they’d spent so much time trying to burn those memories to nothing. It was the voice of someone they had loved – _still_ loved – the once-familiar curl of two others’ grace around their own.

                  _“We have orders,” they said. “We follow them. That’s what we’re meant to do.”_

“There may be a way,” they offered. “It would be difficult – and dangerous.”

                  There’s no need to add the second part, the warning; humanity’s desperate stubbornness precludes any answer other than the one they will give. Still, some hopeless part of Altaïr wanted to believe that maybe, maybe they’d be cautious, maybe they’d be safe, maybe they’d be cowards. Maybe it would heal some of the guilt burning through their grace.

                  “Maybe it’s different when you’re an angel, but the apocalypse sounds kinda’ difficult and dangerous to me,” Rebecca retorted.

                  Desmond said nothing, but he was watching Altaïr expectantly.

                  “You gonna’ point us in the right direction or just leave us hanging?” he asked.

                  His voice was flat and resigned, like it wouldn’t even surprise him if Altaïr left them with that vague statement and no explanation. For a flicker of a moment, it was tempting.

                  “There are keys,” they finally started, “that can close Heaven and Hell.”

                  “You mean permanently?” Rebecca asked.

                  “I thought only the trials could do that,” Malik said.

                  He was frowning, brow wrinkled tight in doubt. Altair glanced over and swallowed the guilt rising bile-like in their throat.

                  “You would need an archangel’s grace to use them,” they continued instead, “but, with it, you may be able to prevent this.”

                  “What about all the people who die? What happens to them?” Desmond asked.

                  “There are many gates,” Altair explained. “Some for souls and some for angels. Souls only pass through a celestial gate if they are carried by an angel, and angels cannot pass through a mundane gate.”

                  “So we close the angels’ gates and then souls can still go to heaven, but heaven can’t meddle with Earth,” Desmond summarized, nodding slightly.

                  Rebecca seemed likewise invested, but Malik’s frown had hardened into outright refusal.

                  “You’re talking suicide,” he snapped. “The amount of grace – you’ll die.”

                  “There is little use in killing Death,” Altair replied calmly. “I speak of fratricide.”

                  Three sets of eyebrows rose in a synchronized jolt.

                  “Wait – you’re gonna’ kill one of your brothers?” Desmond demanded. “Like, Michael and Lucifer brothers?”

                  _Only the latter_ , Altair didn’t say. They’d done enough for Lucifer to receive only pain in return. And maybe this was penance. An apology they couldn’t say aloud.

                  “You’re okay with that?” Desmond asked.

                  His voice was frightened, searching Altair as if he’d find an answer in their expression if not their words.

                  “I have guided enough of my brethren from this life because of them,” Altair answered. “They are due.”

                  It wasn’t quite the same, as Malik knew. Judging from his narrowed eyes, he would press the matter later. Angels were angels – kin in the same way soldiers were. They cared for each other out of loyalty and a battle-forged love. The archangels were something more; God’s experiment in soulmates before He realized they needed an expiration date. That eternity was too long for souls to be entwined – or too long to make one soul live without its other half.

                  After all, it had been that logic that led Altair to strip Malik of his wings. It had been a mercy killing, a way to soothe the ache of Kadar’s grace being ripped away from Malik’s. At least, that was what they’d told themselves.

                  “How do we find the keys?” Rebecca asked.

                  “They were hidden eons ago. Only Metatron knows their location,” Altair answered.

                  Their vessel still hummed with the touch-memory of glowing gol d between its hands, the irrepressible sensation of unlimited power swelling up, hungry and coercing, against its soul. They’d been careless, then. Too absorbed in half-hearted absolution to notice the ruin they’d left behind. This time, there would be nothing left to mourn. A blank slate, Paradise. It was a pity so many would have to die for it to come, but tragedies happened every day. Death did not mourn the loss of lives.

                  “Okay, so can you ask him where they are?” Rebecca prompted.

                  “They are missing,” Altair replied.

                   Rebecca groaned, throwing her hands up, and Desmond dropped his head back against the sofa. _Maybe that is enough. Maybe -_

                  “Wait - you’re the angel of death,” Desmond objected, straightening, “how does anything hide from you?”

                  “He’s the what, now?” Rebecca demanded.

                  “I’ll explain later,” Desmond replied absently, focused on Altaïr.

                  “I’m not God,” Altaïr answered, flat.

                  It wasn’t an answer, and, judging by the way he scowled, Desmond knew it.

                  “Death comes when it is supposed to,” Altaïr finally clarified. “Before that - it isn’t my place to know.”

                  Something shifted in Desmond’s expression, the intent focus fading into a rapid churn of confusion. Then, realization. He stared at Altaïr, hollow shock and the afterimage of understanding lingering in his eyes.

                  “Okay, so we have magical keys that were hidden by some angel who’s now hidden himself and can’t be found until it’s time for him to die,” Rebecca summarized. “Great.”

                  Her comment seemed to break Desmond from his apparent epiphany, although the frown didn’t entirely fade.

                  “Are there - is there anything we can at least look for?” he asked. “Signs, maybe?”

                  Altaïr shuffled their wings, chasing away the memories that lingered bloodlike on their fingers.

                  “They distort reality,” they offered. “They can cause mass hallucinations, massacres, glimpses into alternate dimensions.”

                  Desmond narrowed his eyes, an old memory pricking at the back of his neck.

                  “Wait, what about that old project Lucy and I had? We had a bunch of my ancestors marked as possible prophets. Tons of hallucinations, murders, all that,” he offered. “Could that help?”

                  Rebecca’s lips had pursed, and though she nodded, her attention seemed elsewhere.

                  “Yeah, I think – I think that could. And um there are a few calls I need to make,” she replied.

                  Desmond’s eyebrows rose.

                  “Such as?”

                  “Shaun,” she declared firmly.

                  Desmond groaned.

                  “Oh, c’mon,” he muttered, but she ignored him.

                  Her expression had turned uncertain, but she pressed her lips into a line, steeling herself.

                  “And I think - I think we should call Lucy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot is going to happen. And character development. And stuff. I promise. Eventually.
> 
>  
> 
> AN: Okay, so some bigger changes are now happening, so I apologize for continuity black holes. I promise it's all going to make sense once I finish editing (and it should be a lot more coherent than the original), but for now, it's still a work in progress.


	21. Chapter Twenty

                  The room was silent. Then –

                  “Lucy?” Desmond asked. “You – you’ve heard from her?”

                  His voice trembled, pleading and hurt. Rebecca swallowed and toyed with the edge of the couch. Across the room, Malik had stiffened but Altair was busy watching Desmond’s reaction. There was a reason they had brought him here.

                  “She got in contact with me about a year ago,” she explained. “We’ve been working together on a project, but she said not to let anyone know.”

                  She released a gusty sigh and tilted her head back as if beseeching Heaven above. Then, she straightened and turned towards Desmond with one leg bent beneath her.

                  “I’m sorry, Des, but you know I couldn’t – after she just up and disappeared – I couldn’t betray her trust,” she apologized.

                  “No, it’s – it’s fine,” Desmond lied, not quite meeting her eyes. “Does – does Shaun know?”

                  Rebecca bit her lip but sighed rather than calling him out.

                  “No. We’ve been using – he’s been helping us, but he doesn’t really know what with,” she admitted. “We need a lot of context for the project, and him being a history major – well, it just worked out.”

                  “Right,” Desmond said.

                  He swallowed and met her gaze.

                  “We should probably call them, then. And then you can fill me in on this project?” he suggested.

                  “Yeah,” Rebecca agreed readily. “Yeah, definitely. Here, you call Shaun…”

                  Altair watched them a moment longer before quietly slipping from their plane. Malik followed but didn’t offer comment as they engraved sigils and wards into the bricks and mortar of the building. It slouched wearily through the process, like its hundred-odd years were far too much to leave it surprised by an archangel weaving protection and death through its walls. Malik let them finish before speaking.

                  “What are you really planning, Altair?” he asked.

                  His voice was quiet, nearly the same tone as Desmond’s, but there was a hint of something different, something like hope. The thought made something low and cold settle in their gut.

                  “I am planning what I have said,” Altair replied.

                  The hope still lingered there, steadfast and foolish. Altair wanted to sneer at it, to mock him for his naïveté. It sounded hollow when they thought to, though, and they kept quiet.

                  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Malik asked finally.

                  There wasn’t a chain around their neck in this form, but they could still feel the slow burn of grace against their own. They studied the warding rather than facing Malik. They were death, the judge, the righteous. Theirs was the clear mind, the one that knew right from wrong. _When did it change?_

                  “What would you have had me say?” they asked. “The truth?”

                  Malik flinched. Altair turned back to the warding.

                  “It wasn’t mine to tell,” they added softly.

                  “Bull shit,” Malik snapped. “It wasn’t yours to keep from me.”

                  _It is_ mine. For so long, it had been. It had been their secret, tucked tight between the atoms of their grace. Altair pulled their wings tight as they tried to flare.

                  “Why? Did you think it was funny to keep it from me? To dangle grace so close and never mention it? Just watch me dance for it like a fucking moron?” Malik snarled.

 _NO._ The word jolted through Altair’s grace before they could stop it. Malik started, surprise radiating through him in waves. A fine tremor raced through his red-orange form. He redirected, flaring white-hot for an instant; the shadows of six lost wings flashed like auras into view. Yearning stole through Altair like a lightning bolt, and they stifled it just as quickly.

                  “I’m not – I’m not your _pet_ , Altair,” Malik hissed.

                  He waited, crackling and burning, but Altair offered nothing. There was nothing to say. They could not be sorry, could not offer an apology for an action long past. It had happened, it had ended. That the repercussions continued this far into the future was simply part of nature rather than their fault. They repeated this to themselves until it numbed that low, cold coil in their gut.

                  Malik seemed to search them, scour their grace for any sign of the angel’s thoughts. When it didn’t come, the hope stuttered at the sudden onslaught of disbelief.  _Good,_ Altair told themselves. _Good._

                  They couldn’t quite bring themselves to believe it. Malik’s charcoal grace subsided into a slow, low smolder, and he dropped carelessly back into the apartment. Desmond flinched, phone jerking across the side of his face, and Rebecca dropped hers in surprise.

                  “ _Malik_ ,” Desmond complained.

                  The glare he shot over his shoulder was half-hearted at best, and the demon grinned shark teeth. His gaze slipped pointedly past Desmond, and Altair spilled slowly into their vessel. The pendant around their neck scorched their skin, leaving invisible scars everywhere it touched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think we can all agree that this officially makes no sense and we have entered a rabbit hole within the rabbit hole. I'm so sorry.
> 
>  
> 
> AN: Continuity is so hard. Also character development. I just want sappy Altmal, is that so hard to ask?


	22. Chapter Twenty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the Animus

                  They met in an old warehouse with rust-eaten walls squatting on the outskirts of downtown. The river washed rank against the city here, and Desmond gagged on the stench of sewage. Rebecca didn’t seem to notice as she dug a ring of keys out of her pocket. The padlock was shiny and new against the decrepit walls, but Desmond didn’t bother mentioning it.

                  Rebecca heaved open the door, and it creaked and complained as it went. _We’re going to die here_ , Desmond thought with the absolute clarity of a prophecy and none of the gravity. Surely, the rusty edges and punched-out holes were omens. He followed Rebecca in.

                  “Hey, Lucy?” she called.

                  Weak light dripped in through gaps in the ceilings and walls, thin trickles of grey in the dark. The rest was thick with shadows that seemed to move, like something living was waiting just beyond Desmond’s vision. He swallowed and stepped a little closer to Rebecca.

                  “Lucy, it’s me and Desmond,” Rebecca called.

                  “Yeah, just a sec,” another voice replied.

                  Desmond jumped, and Rebecca laughed a skittish chuckle. Footsteps clicked against the concrete floor, coming towards them from the darkness.

                  It was like a knight in armor, a king’s champion in all their plated glory. Desmond could see Lucy, could catch glimpses of the girl he’d known three years ago, but she was carefully hidden behind hard planes and harsh angles. Her cheekbones were sharp, shoulders squared, and the white turtleneck she wore was a brittle white. It hurt his eyes.

                  Lucy slowed as she neared, cool blue eyes flicking over Desmond like an appraisal. When she’d finished, her expression hadn’t softened but her chinned had tipped up just slightly. Desmond remembered that tic.

                  “Hello, Desmond,” she greeted.

                  He hesitated, choking on all the questions he wanted to ask. _Where have you been? Why did you leave? Where did you go? How long have you been this close without me knowing? Why didn’t you tell me?_ He swallowed them down. It wasn’t his right any more. Somewhere along the line, she’d decided he didn’t get to know, and – and it _hurt_ , like a hole through his heart, but that didn’t change a thing.

                  “Hey,” he replied.

                  “So,” Rebecca broke in. “How’s Baby?”

                  Lucy blinked like she’d forgotten Rebecca’s presence and turned with a flick of her hand.

                  “All settled in and ready to go,” she said over her shoulder. “What’s the plan? You didn’t say much on the phone.”

                  “Altair thinks some of my ancestors may have had these keys,” Desmond explained. “They think we can use your – uh _project_ to see where they left them.”

                  “And we’ve got some ideas of where to start,” Rebecca added, “courtesy of Desmond’s old research project.”

                  “Yeah,” Desmond affirmed. “Might help, anyway.”

                  Lucy nodded slightly, as if that was a perfectly reasonable answer.

                  “Where is Altair?” she asked. “And Malik, I assume he’s still around.”

                  “Malik’s with Shaun,” Rebecca answered. “Haven’t seen Altair all day.”

                  Lucy stopped to key a code into a door’s number pad; it unlocked with a clunk, and she twisted the handle open. She flicked a switch, and fluorescent lights sputtered to life one row at a time. A strange chair sat in the middle of the room near a roll-up garage door. Computer banks surrounded it, and a moving van squatted in the shadows.

                  “Well this isn’t creepy at all,” Desmond joked.

                  No one laughed.

                  “We’ll need a few hours, at least,” Lucy said, turning to him.

                  He shrugged, hands still in his hoodie’s pockets.

                  “I’ve got all day off,” he replied.

                  Lucy studied him for a moment longer, her eyes narrowed as if she was looking for something she couldn’t quite see. She turned away, headed towards the computer bank with Rebecca right behind her. Desmond shivered.

                  “Roll up your sleeves and lay back,” Lucy ordered.

                  Desmond eyed the chair warily, bunching his sleeves up around his elbows. It looked like something from a post-apocalyptic world, metal repurposed and reinforced with plywood and mismatching metal. He sat gingerly and leaned back with the certainty that it was going to collapse under his weight. _I’m going to die_ , he amended his earlier thought as Lucy pulled over a rolling stand and IV.

                  “You guys make this all yourselves?” he asked as she slipped the needle into his vein.

                  She did it easily, smoothly, like she’d practiced a thousand times before.

                  “Most of it,” Rebecca affirmed. “We got some help with the cocktail and health stuff.”

                  “Health…stuff?” Desmond asked.

                  The world was getting fuzzy and distant, as if he was inside a speeding car and it was farther and farther away. A glass dome appeared over him, and he wondered if it had always been there and he just didn’t notice.

                  “Shh, Des,” Lucy said from far away. “Just rel-”

                  He was on a ship. He was on a ship and there were people running everywhere and it was raining and he was on a ship.

                  “What the fuck,” Desmond said.

                  “Hey, Des, you there?” Rebecca’s voice asked.

                  He couldn’t see her anywhere. The ship lurched suddenly, sending him staggering.

                  “I’m on a ship,” he stated.

                  There was a staticky laugh.

                  “Yeah, we can see you. Just go along with it, okay? We’re not sure whose memory you’re in,” Rebecca replied.

                  _Okay. Great._ _I’m on a ship who knows where, who knows when. What could possibly go wrong?_ A man was running towards him, somehow keeping steady on the sloppy, spilling deck. He bowed, rainwater dripping off his blunt nose.

                  “Captain Kenway, sir, we need to find port, sir,” he yelled over the thunder.

                  “Okay,” Desmond agreed before catching himself. “I mean, aye. Aye, we do...mate.”

                  The world seized briefly, flickering like a glitch. The man stared at him. Desmond stumbled again with another roll of the ship in the angry sea.

                  “Are you alright, sir?” the man asked slowly.

                  “Y- aye. Aye, I’m well. Now - uh - get a move on,” Desmond bluffed. “Hoist the colors!”

                  The man nodded slowly before backing away as if from a wild animal. Desmond grimaced and opened his mouth to ask Rebecca what he was supposed to do. The ship gave another wild lurch, and he stumbled, hard. The rail hit his hip and then he was tumbling over into the rabid sea frothing below. His legs seized, his lungs froze in his chest. Brine poured into his throat. He choked, tried to scream, inhaled saltwater.

                  The world went black.

                  Desmond jerked upright, smacked his head into something hard and clear. There was noise nearby, someone fumbling with the chair. The glass slid away.

                  “What the hell,” he gasped out.

                  The air startled him, like he’d expected seawater to rush in instead. He could still feel it burning down his throat, flooding his lungs. He doubled over, reaching for his chest as if he could reassure himself it was only air. A warm hand settled on his shoulder, small but comforting.

                  “Shh, it’s okay, Desmond,” Lucy soothed. “Take a deep breath. It’s okay.”

                  It didn’t feel okay. It felt like it had been him that died, him that choked to death on bitter cold brine. He couldn’t shake the last fleeting images he’d seen - nonsense, a woman in leather, a laughing blonde man, a family with the faces blurred out like a destroyed photograph. It had been him, for all that he was alive now in the twenty-first century.

                  “What the hell happened?” he demanded when he could breathe again.

                  “You desynched,” Rebecca said from the computer.

                  She was bowed over it, typing furiously.

                  “I what?” Desmond asked.

                  “You desynchronized from the memory,” Lucy explained. “You’re reliving memories of your ancestors, and when you do something that’s too different from what happened, the machine can’t keep up. You desynch. Once you’ve gotten better at it, it won’t happen so much or so intensely, but right now, it can be...”

                  “Fucking awful?” he suggested.

                  She offered a thin smile.

                  “Yeah,” she agreed.

                  He let out a long, shaky breath and ran a hand over his face. _Just have to get better at it_ , he thought. _It’s like soccer. That’s all. Practice._

                  “Okay,” he said. “Okay, hook me back up.”

                  Lucy hesitated, glancing over at Rebecca.

                  “Des, I don’t know that that’s such a good idea,” Rebecca started.

                  “I just need practice,” Desmond interrupted. “It was my first time. Now, I know I’m going to be on a ship, I’m going to be someone named Kenway - I can do better.”

                  Rebecca bit her lip before looking to Lucy for direction. The blonde met her gaze before studying Desmond for a minute.

                  “Okay,” she agreed. “Same memory. Let’s try again.”

                  Desmond nodded, laying back out in the rickety chair and closing his eyes. This time, he was ready when the ship heaved towards the sea; he bent his legs and braced himself as he dropped into a long-dead ancestor’s body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm chapter-dumping again. Sorry. I will try to schedule some of them at least so y'all aren't totally overloaded.
> 
> Thanks for hanging in there!


	23. Chapter Twenty-Two

                  “This isn’t healthy,” Malik muttered.

                  He was perched on a shipping crate near the team’s set-up, Altair standing beside him.

                  “No,” they agreed.

                  Desmond was gone from their world. His arms and legs gave the occasional twitch, but he seemed to have adjusted to the machine already. It had been two weeks since they started, two weeks that started as only afternoons or hours when Desmond didn’t have class and had gradually become all-day affairs, where they nearly had to drag him from the Animus to remind him to sleep, to eat, to drink. He cared less and less about all three each time he woke.

                  “He’s your charge,” Malik pointed out.

                  He didn’t bother adding what they both heard anyway: _why aren’t you doing something? Why aren’t you stopping him?_ Altair bit down on the words that wanted to spill out in reply. _Because this is what is supposed to happen. This is what Michael says Father wills._

                  “You said once that some things should be fought for,” they said instead. “Desmond is fighting.”

                  Malik turned towards them, shoulders dropping in surprise. His face was, briefly, open and hopeful. Then, doubt shut it out.

                  “You’re okay with that?” he asked.

                  Altair was silent for a moment.

                  “It is not this word’s time,” they answered, finally.

                  _It was eras, eons, ago. It was when Father first pulled land to the surface of his aqueous rock and called it ‘Earth.’_

Malik’s shoulders released fully, and he straightened partially to drop his elbows to his knees. His gaze was intent on the trio, but a small smile pulled at his lips as if he thought of something else, something better and kinder.

                  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, I don’t think so, either.”

                  They were both silent for a time, watching the humans with their work. Rebecca offered occasional advice to Desmond through a headpiece and jotted down notes; Lucy was busy on one of the laptops, though Altaïr couldn’t tell what she was doing exactly.

                  “You know, what I said the other day,” Malik started, “I don’t know what you’re doing or trying to do, but I – I trust you, I guess. If you say this is the right way to do it – I’m willing to give it a shot.”

                  Altair stayed silent, the pendant around their neck burning white-hot and freezing against their skin. Some irrational urge pushed them to rip it from their neck and give it back, repent for all they’d done. They didn’t.

                  Desmond was waking now, and Lucy pulled the IV gently from his arm. He blinked, rubbing at blurry eyes. They were unfocused, like he hadn’t quite returned to this reality. Lucy hesitated, resting a hand on his arm.

                  “You with us, Des?” she asked softly.

                  He jerked towards her, blinking again.

                  “Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah I’m good,” he said.

                  She frowned slightly, lingering a moment longer before pulling herself upright and packing away the medical material. Desmond frowned into space, rubbing absently at the inside of his elbow. Malik leaned forward, eyes narrowed.

                  “How did those two get a machine to splice a soul anyway?” he asked.

                  The trio around the computers glanced up, though it was clear they hadn’t heard exactly what he’d said.

                  “They’re smart,” Altaïr answered, straightening.

                  Malik scoffed, something about understatements and centuries. Altair didn’t bother paying attention. Instead, they stepped forward and pressed two fingertips to Desmond’s forehead. He flinched before shuddering and blinking clear eyes up at them.

                  “What was that for?” he asked.

                  “To help,” Altair answered.

                  Desmond’s eyes narrowed, scouring Altair’s face for a minute.

                  “Thanks,” he replied finally.

                  Altair stepped back as he slid off the chair and meandered over to where Rebecca and Lucy huddled over the computer. As he went, Altair watched the edge of his soul start to fray. It was little more than a snag on the edge, a single thread pulled from its stitch, but fear curled heavy and cold behind their ribs.

                  “So, what’s the ‘Brotherhood’?” Desmond asked, rubbing the inside of his elbow. “Or Assassins or whatever.”

                  Rebecca and Lucy shared a look too fast for Desmond to decipher. He frowned, worrying the spot on his arm. It was healed, no mark left, but it still felt funny, as if it was missing something.

                  “Secrets don’t make friends, guys,” he remarked.

                  “Yeah. Um. We should maybe get Shaun in here and explain it to both of you,” Rebecca suggested.

                  Lucy’s lips thinned.

                  “We could use him to sort through this data anyway,” Rebecca prompted.

                  The blonde sighed.

                  “Bring him in,” she conceded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, poor Malik.
> 
> I thought I published this yesterday. Oops.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Three

                  Shaun was taking the news surprisingly well, if anyone asked Desmond. They didn’t, of course, but he was impressed nonetheless.

                  “Let me get this straight: monsters, demons, and angels are real, you two are part of a secret society that hunts them, and now you’re using Desmond to relive memories of ancient members of said society in order to lock up Heaven and Hell and stop the Apocalypse,” Shaun said. “Did I get all that?”

                  They were positioned around the Animus with Desmond perched on the side, Rebecca by the computer, and Lucy standing in front of it. Shaun sat on a chair between them with an increasingly flat expression on his face.

                  “Yes,” Lucy affirmed.

                  “Did you really say all that in one breath?” Desmond asked.

                  He hadn’t expected the Assassins’ brotherhood, but he wasn’t entirely surprised. If angels and demons were as prevalent as they seemed, it made sense that some humans would take issue with them and band together to stop them. As smart and nosy as Rebecca was, it made sense she’d eventually poke around too much and catch somebody’s attention. Lucy – well, he didn’t want to think about how she got involved.

                  “Why isn’t your _Order_ taking care of this then?” Shaun pressed. “Wouldn’t they be better equipped to handle the apocalypse than a handful of undergrads?”

                  Lucy’s lips tightened.

                  “We’re – there was an attack a few years ago that left us a lot weaker than we should be,” she explained. “We need all hands on deck, and right now, that means we’re the best candidates for the job.”

                  “An attack?” Desmond echoed.

                  “Templars,” Lucy explained, clipped. “They’re…religious zealots. Think Westboro but with a lot more firepower and just enough knowledge of the supernatural to be dangerous. They think all that’s going on is a sign of – of Revelation, and they’re the Elect.”

                  ‘ _All that’s going on.’_

                  “Wait, so you guys have known about this?” Desmond asked. “How come you haven’t done anything?”

                  “We knew something big was happening, but not what it was,” Lucy explained. “About three years ago, there was a huge surge in demonic and angelic activity without any clear reason. Between that and the other phenomena, our hands were full.”

                  “What other phenomena?” Shaun prompted.

                  Rebecca sighed, dropping her headphones around her neck and leaning back.

                  “Zombies,” she started with one hand tossed up, “freak deaths, random miracles. There was this thing in Illinois, too: an entire forest flattened, all around an unmarked grave. The thing looked like somebody’d clawed their way out. I mean, there was textbook angel shit, too, but a ton of it.”

                  “Zombies and freak deaths are textbook angel shit?” Desmond asked.

                  He stole a glance at Altair to find them, as usual, placid and stoic. Compared to them, Malik was a veritable rainbow of emotion.

                  “Oh yeah,” Rebecca nodded. “Like, Old Testament angel stuff. Remember Exodus?”

                  Desmond grimaced. They’d shown _Prince of Egypt_ in one of the few Sunday school classes he’d attended as a kid. It wasn’t a scene that left anyone quickly.

                  “Nothing like a good smiting to show the grace of God,” Malik muttered.

                  Desmond choked on a laugh, but the others stayed silent. When he looked, they were all stern-faced and solemn.

                  “Oh, come on,” he objected. “Altair’s the freaking angel of death and the worse he’s done is rough up Malik. You don’t _really_ think angels are going around slaughtering people?”

                  “That’s not tr-”

                  “ _Lucy!_ ”

                  The two women froze. There was an argument there that Desmond couldn’t decipher, fought with microexpressions and silence. Cold crept up his neck.

                  “What do you mean, ‘that isn’t true’?” he asked slowly.

                  “It’s nothing,” Rebecca said. “Just a rumor.”

                  Lucy broke the staredown by glancing away. Her jaw was still set, and her glare shifted onto Altair. The angel didn’t flinch, but Malik’s brow furrowed into a puzzled expression. He narrowed his eyes, watching Altair, but Altair didn’t look his way.

                  Lucy broke the staredown, jaw set. Her glare transferred easily to Altaïr. The angel didn’t flinch, but Malik had a curious expression when Desmond glanced back at them. The demon was staring at Altaïr, brow furrowed as if puzzled. Altaïr didn’t look his way.

                  “Anyway,” Rebecca interjected. “We should get some work done. You know, sort through this, figure out why Desmond’s in Colonial America, all that. Shaun?”

                  Lucy grabbed her laptop and brushed past Shaun as he stood. The door clicked shut behind her, quiet and anticlimactic, and Rebecca exhaled. When Desmond stood to follow, though, she broke her silence.

                  “Hey, Des, we need to get you caught up, too,” she chided.

                  “Aw, c’mon, Becca,” he protested. “I’ve been in the chair for hours. I need some fresh air.”

                  She didn’t buy it, of course, but she relented.

                  “Fine. Twenty minutes,” she said.

                  “You’re the best!” Desmond called as he bolted.

                  Once he had reached the main body of the warehouse, though, he had to pause. Lucy’d managed to cover some distance, apparently; the first several rooms were empty. Finally, he reached a large cargo bay half-lit by the evening light.

                  “Lucy?” he called. “You in here?”

                  “Up here.”

                  He started, then craned his neck back. She was on one of the beams along the ceiling, legs dangling over the edge and back hunched over her laptop.

                  “Holy shit,” he breathed. “How’d you get up there?”

                  She glanced down, distracted. It was easy to follow her gaze as it slip-slid over shelves and walls.

                  “There are stairs…over there,” she offered.

                  _That you definitely didn’t take_. He hurried up the steps, the metal clacking and creaking beneath his tennis shoes, before pausing at the end of the beam nearest her. The beam looked barely wide enough for one foot, and the floor miles below. _I’m so going to die._ Pulling himself up cautiously, he crouched on his hands and knees to creep out towards her. His heart pounded, deafening, in his ears.

                  “Oh sweet mother of Jesus,” he exhaled upon reaching her.

                  Lucy looked up with a surprised smile quirking the corners of her lips. _There._ For an instant, she was the same Lucy he’d always known. Then it was gone, shuffled away behind a mask made of years apart and careful practice. He swallowed and carefully settled down beside her. Glancing down sent vertigo rolling through his gut, so he straightened and looked at Lucy instead.

                  The computer screen illuminated her in blue, eyes too-bright and nearly digital with the way they shone. There was a small scar curling under her jaw that he’d never seen before, highlighted silvery blue, and her hair was pulled back in a slick twist without a tendril out of place. His heart gave a soft, grieving seize.

                  “So, what’re you up to up here?” he asked.

                  “Work,” she answered curtly.

                  He nodded, unsurprised. _Is this what you’ve done all these years?_ He wanted to ask, could feel it pressing at the back of his throat, but he swallowed it down. He refocused on the rows of beams lined up in front of them.

                  “What you said about Altair…what did you mean?” he asked.

The clicking of her computer keys stopped, and he didn’t have to look to know she was frowning down at her laptop screen. He’d seen the sight a thousand times in high school; he recognized the silence.

                  “Rebecca’s right, we don’t have any proof,” she hedged.

                  Desmond laughed at that, turning towards her with raised eyebrows. He’d been right: she was glaring at her computer screen like it had personally offended her.

                  “You don’t generally believe unfounded rumors,” he replied. “I guess, I mean-”

                  He could’ve hit himself; he didn’t know her, not anymore, but she exhaled a laugh, brushing a nonexistent tendril of hair from her face. He wondered, briefly, if she even knew she still did it.

                  “No, I guess I don’t,” she admitted.

                  She fell silent again, and Desmond waited while she organized her thoughts.

                  “The thing is - your dad? He was a hunter. A really, really good hunter,” she started.

                  Desmond frowned, leaning in. He couldn’t remember any hint of the supernatural before the crash, but then, he’d met Altair years before. He just hadn’t realized it. As for his father – well, four years had only been enough to give him faint impressions and context-less fragments. It made sense in a away that his father had been a part of the fight; after all, it seemed their entire lineage had.

                  “Both your parents were; they ran the Order before you were born,” Lucy continued. “So, whatever killed him – he would’ve been able to take it down first _unless_ it was something you can’t take down.”

                  Cold trailed up the back of his neck like fingers, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake.

                  “My dad died in an earthquake,” he retorted. “It wrecked the whole house, and he got caught in it. It’s sad but it’s not – it’s not an _attack_.”

                  She turned to him this time, exasperation in her quirked brow.

                  “C’mon, Desmond, a freak earthquake that only hit most of one house?” she asked, dry.

                  “You think it’s less likely than _Altair_ killing him?” Desmond demanded. “They protect me, always has. Why would they kill my dad?”

                  “I don’t know,” Lucy admitted. “Okay? I don’t. But that kind of destruction - that’s one of the first things you look for with archangels. They’re heavy hitters. They don’t come down easy.”

                   “That’s ridiculous,” Desmond protested. “Altaïr would never-”

                  “Would never what?” Lucy asked. “Hurt anyone?”

                  Her tone sharpened, a warning just under her words. She didn’t have to say more for him to hear how foolish it sounded. Altair was the angel of death; of course they’d hurt people. It was written into their very name. Memories trickled in with high definition clarity: Malik slouching onto his hips with fist-sized holes in a broken chest, a demon quivering with fear and bolting the moment she could, a cold hand and a warning as Lucy tried to be brave.

                  “But - why?” he asked. “Altair – Altair said they only come when it’s somebody’s time to die.”

                  This time, the confusion and plea in his voice overwrote any doubt. Altair had said they only came when it was someone’s time, when they had to. They came because it was God’s will and it was just. But – but if they came because they decided to, because _they_ willed it, then – why? _Why my dad and Danny and Josh and Rose? Why?_

Lucy shook her head, frowning down through her computer screen.

                  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I want to find out.”


	25. Chapter Twenty-four

                  Another week passed, nondescript except for the surprise that Desmond’s ancestor wasn’t an Assassin but a traitor, a Templar.    

                  “I’m living in a Dan Brown novel,” Shaun griped.

                  “At least we haven’t met any crazy monks,” Desmond offered, rubbing his eyes.

                  It was his second session of the day, and his consciousness still lingered in the past, in the lives he’d never lived. Altair had been there was soon as he woke, fingers pressed to Desmond’s brow and a worried frown growing ever deeper on their face. Desmond didn’t ask; he didn’t want to know.

                  He did want to know why Shaun was suddenly silent, though. A glance up revealed it: the redhead was staring at him with aggressively intense disbelief.

                  “Your entire bloody ancestry is made up of crazy monks!” he snapped. “Only they hunt monsters and talk to angels!”

                  “Speaking of which,” Lucy broke in before Shaun could get going, “did you get that last bit deciphered?”

                  Rebecca gave a shrug.

                  “Bits and pieces, but it’s mostly just screaming,” she admitted.

                  “I understood it when I was under,” Desmond said.

                  He swung his legs around to the side of the chair to face them. He’d gotten used to it by now, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that one day it would collapse underneath him. He’d deal with it when it happened – if they were alive long enough, anyway.

                  Rebecca lifted her index finger deliberately and clicked a button on her keyboard.  Screaming filled the room. It was familiar in its polyphonics and the way it sent Desmond’s hands shooting to his ears and his gut coiling tight in a ball. _Fuck_. Somewhere along the line, he’d forgotten just how much it had hurt to hear Altair that night. In the Animus, the angels’ language was clear as English.

                  Slowly, he became aware of laughter. It was quiet, genuinely amused chuckling from just behind him, and he turned to see Malik stifling the sound. Altair was frowning slightly, but they almost looked…bemused.

                  The screaming cut out.

                  “What does it mean?” Lucy demanded.

                  Malik glanced up, lips curled up in a grin. He glanced over at Altair before shrugging slightly and shaking his head.

                  “It’s – it’s not what Desmond heard, I’m pretty sure,” he said.

                  “It’s just - whatever you’ve got there isn’t what Desmond heard,” he said.

                  “It’s pulled straight from the Animus,” Rebecca retorted.

                  Altair shifted, bemusement fading into a more familiar frown. Their arms dropped to their sides.

                  “Machines have little sway over angels,” they replied.

                  “Okay, then what is it?” Lucy asked again.

                  “It’s dirty jokes,” Malik answered.

                  His voice was caught somewhere between laughter and mild embarrassment, like he was embarrassed for the angel who had spoken. The room was silent for a long, baffled minute.

                  “What?”

                  “You mean some angel just decided to swap out the audio with yo’ momma jokes?”

                  “Why would they do that?”

                  “What the hell’s an angel doing with my Baby?”

                  Malik held up a hand to forestall them. His expression was baffled but amused, like he couldn’t quite say why it was cracking him up. Altair’s gaze had gone distant, head tilted just-so as if they were listening to something no one else could hear.

                  “I’ve got no clue,” Malik admitted. “They probably didn’t want the real message getting into the wrong hands, so they overwrote it. As long as Desmond got the message, then no one else could mess it up.”

                  “But why wouldn’t they let us hear it?” Rebecca asked. 

                  “More importantly, why would they think _he’d_ be able to remember it after?” Shaun prodded.

                  Desmond rolled his eyes but ignored the jab. He and Shaun would probably never see eye-to-eye, but they’d gotten over most their differences within their year of being roommates.

                  “A diversion.”

                  They froze. Desmond turned slowly, but Altaïr was already in motion.

                  “Save what you have, you need to leave,” they ordered.

                  Their wings were folded neat and precise against their back, but there was none of the angry tightness that appeared when they and Malik got into arguments no one else could hear. They looked like a soldier, like someone walking into a war they’d waged a thousand times over.

                  “Malik, protect Desmond. Lucy, stay with them,” they continued. “Rebecca, Shaun, save the data and lock down.”

                  They gave orders curtly, firmly, like they knew they would be obeyed. Their sword had appeared, and they flipped it around to slice through their other forearm as they stalked across the warehouse. Malik strode to Desmond obediently while Shaun and Rebecca bent over the computer, but Lucy resisted.

                  “Why? What’s going on?” she demanded.

                  Altair crouched, smearing blood across the floor in quick arcs and angles. Whatever they wrote, Desmond couldn’t read it.

                  “Don’t bother, brother.”

                  Altair’s hand stilled halfway through a sigil. The rest of the team froze, gawking at the newcomers who’d simply appeared in the shadows. They stepped forward like a Wall Street army, all placid faces and trim suits. Gold glowed under their skin like grace barely contained within human flesh, and a shiver trembled through Desmond’s spine. Malik was taut as a wire beside him, legs bent just slightly in a defensive crouch.

                  The one who spoke stepped ahead of the rest, feet just beside Altair. Desmond watched the archangel’s head turn just slightly toward them.

                  “Thank you for your work,” the angel announced. “We will take it from here.”

                  There was a cool authority in their tone, the thanks only courtesy rather than felt.

                  “And you are?” Shaun prompted.

                  “A servant of the Lord,” they replied, “as you are, I’m sure.”

                  The sneer wasn’t visible, but it was loud enough in their words.

                  “Now, the prophet?” they prompted.

                  They didn’t point or beckon: they merely lifted their chin towards him, as if that was enough to command him.

                  “Acriel, what are you doing?” Altair asked.

                  Their voice was still level and even, but there was something like confusion underneath it. Their posture was relaxed, no threat in their loose shoulders and still hands.

                  “Following orders,” the angel, Acriel, answered. “Altair, you are commanded to return to Eden for questioning by Michael, First Prince of Heaven and Guard of Eden.”

                  Altair’s fingers curled just slightly, but they didn’t move as three stepped towards Desmond with blades drawn. Desmond stared.

                  “Altair?” he asked.

                  His voice broke in between the syllables, a crack running straight through it. Malik stepped forward, blade in hand. Desmond flinched; he was used to Malik using his barbs and jabs as a weapon, not a blade, not something that could be taken and turned against him. With Altair bowed before the other angel, it felt like a Renaissance painting gone awry. _The demon defies fate,_ he thought blankly. _The surrender of the archangel Altair._

                  “Stand aside, demon,” one of the angels ordered.

                  “No can do, Jeremial,” Malik retorted. “Why don’t you back the fuck off?”

                  “Malik,” Altaïr said quietly.

                  The demon flinched as if slapped and half-turned towards the kneeling angel. It was enough for the other angels to wrest him away from Desmond and disarm him. Malik snarled, eyes clicking black.

                  “Altair?” Desmond asked, weaker than before.

                  They didn’t reply.

                  The other angels fanned out around the room and crept closer; they moved warily, as if they knew there was a landmine somewhere under the floor but didn’t know where. Outside, thunder rumbled low.

                  The angel who took Desmond had thin fingers and a wispy, skeletal quality to their frame, but their grip was strong and firm as metal. He flinched at the clammy heat.

                  “Altaïr, do not-”

                  Desmond jerked around, just in time to see blinding light and then - nothing. Altaïr was gone, as was the angel who’d stood next to them. A slight angel in the body of a young girl stood with their hand pressed to a bloody sigil. Scorch marks encircled it.

                  “Unfortunate,” one of the remaining angels remarked.

                  They stepped forward - and the ground shook.

                  Thunder crashed, lightning broke the room to shards. Altaïr landed with a screeching crack, concrete crumbled beneath them. Their wings were stretched high and black; Desmond thought he could see stars in the spaces between the feathers. Altair stood sharply, wings still flared as they stalked forward. Wrath burnt gold in their eyes.

                  “I am a billion years old.  Universes crumble at my fingertips. I am undying. I am the Ender of All. And you dare to challenge me?” they snarled.

                  Once upon a time, Desmond had been frightened by Altair showing up with a dozen wings and a silver sword. He’d wanted to hide like a mouse, like some scurrying creature darting from danger.

                  Now, mountains crumbled in Altair’s voice, oceans burnt dry and fire scorched the earth black. Paralysis seized Desmond. The angel holding him trembled leaf-like against his back. Despite the blade against his neck, Desmond felt sympathy well up in his chest. When Malik had claimed Altair was the archangel of death, Desmond had scoffed. Now, he couldn’t imagine doubting it.

                  Altair’s gaze didn’t leave Desmond and his captor as they stalked forward. Their hands shot out to stab through the lesser angels who tried to stop them, but they didn’t glance away. They were a predator, a storm, a force of nature leased from its captivity. Desmond couldn’t tear his eyes away even as terror scorched his throat like bile.

                  The angel behind him tensed and pressed their blade hard to Desmond’s neck. There was a sharp sting, then warmth trickling down his neck. He gasped. Altair’s wings flared, the shadows brushing the ceiling far above, and their face slid into cold and stony apathy.

                  “You are to report to Michael,” the angel echoed, “or the prophet dies.”

                  Altair straightened slowly, wings settling and shoulders loosening. The blade on their wrist clicked into place with a quiet _shnick._ Desmond shivered, jogging the blade against his neck.

                  “If I go, you will release him?” Altaïr asked.

                  Their voice was strangely mild, and Desmond felt a shiver of grief ripple through his veins. _This is what hope looks like. This is how betrayal sounds._ Behind them, the angels struggled back to their feet with scarlet-soaked suits.

                  “Yes,” the angel said.

                  Altair’s expression shifted, something tiny and vital collapsing in their eyes. Desmond recognized the feeling if not the look; it was the same he’d worn when he was finally told Santa wasn’t real. He’d known for years but held out hope nonetheless. Altair’s face wore the same resignation.

                  “I am sorry, Jeremial,” they said.

                  Then they were moving, a bolt of black and grey. The other angels were fast, but they were nothing more than sparrows before a hawk; they darted in and nicked and stabbed and occasionally hit, but they crumpled beneath Altair’s blade. White seared through the dark warehouse and scorched Desmond’s eyes. The angel tightened their grip, blade firm against his neck.

                  Shaun and Rebecca were still ducked under the table across the room, Lucy crouched just to the side. She was scowling at Desmond or the angel behind him, and her lips were pressed into a familiar thin line. _Oh no,_ he thought blankly. _No no no, don’t do it._ She couldn’t hear him, but it didn’t matter; she wouldn’t have listened if she could.

                  She bolted, diving towards the angel.

                  Later, they would tell Desmond what happened.  They would describe how Malik broke free just as Desmond crumpled. They would say it felt like time froze, that the world simply stopped for three heartbeats, just enough time for Desmond’s to give out. They would gesture around the blinding white light that shocked them to the core. They would whisper about the elation and horror that swept through them with it, as if they were in the presence of a father whose love was as terrifying as his wrath.

                  They’d tell him later. Right then, there was only a jolt of bone-deep pain and then –

                  black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUNNNN
> 
> I feel like, in both of these drafts, I'm just always working towards the chapter where Altaïr goes to Eden to piss off Michael. Like, it's literally 98% of my endgoal.
> 
> AN: I'm really pumped to keep editing and working on this, but I really have to get some homework done. I'll try to upload some more tomorrow.


	26. Chapter Twenty-Five

                  The room was silent. Charcoal impressions were sketched across the floor and walls in rough strokes. The computers flashed, but the team was shock-still as if a bomb had just gone off. _Which – well._ Malik stared at his hands, hoping their familiarity would assuage the tide of confusion rising panic-like through him. Altaïr’s grace had dislodged bricks in a well-built dam, and the images jumbled and rolled through his mind. He couldn’t make sense of them as a whole, only as disparate fragments.

                  “Altaïr?”

                  Lucy’s voice was shaky, her jaw trembling as she tried to keep her voice strong. She knelt with red hands cradling Desmond’s body, fine shakes running through her body. Across the room, Altaïr mirrored her. Their wings were curled up in half-folded arches with a holy glow burning around the edges, and cracks radiated through the concrete from where they touched. It was as if they had just fallen from heaven, grace not quite ready to settle down into a vessel.

                  “Altaïr, you have to heal him,” Lucy said. “You have – you can fix it, like you fixed me.”

                  Her voice was half-command, half-plea, terror woven into fire-hardened steel. It was the same voice Altaïr had used when they realized that they had been betrayed, that somewhere along the line they had fallen out of priority. Malik swallowed against the nauseas déjà vu washing over him.

                  “Altaïr,” Lucy ordered again.

                  Her voice hardened and sharpened as the angel forced heavy wings to fold neatly against their back. They seemed to be bolstering themselves; Lucy, through her place as a commander, and Altaïr through his role as a soldier. From what Malik could see, they both needed it.

                  They were bleeding, grace seeping out in dry-ice wisps along with their vessels blood; somewhere along the line, the now-dead angels had landed some hard hits. Lucy’s hands were slick with Desmond’s blood, her hair escaping the tight twist she’d worn.

                  “I cannot,” Altaïr ground out.

                  “You’re an archangel,” Lucy snapped. “You bring prophets back to life for fun.”

                  Altaïr’s jaw was set painfully tight, and when they looked up, Malik flinched. Their eyes were gold, that burning gilt that Malik hadn’t seen in years, in decades, in centuries. He couldn’t tell if it was a warning for them or Michael.

                  “Desmond is not dead,” Altaïr replied. “I will not let his soul pass, but I cannot – if I touched him now, I would kill him.”

                  Stubborn determination had settled into Lucy’s expression, but Malik stepped forward to stop her.

                  “They’re right, Lucy,” he said. “Desmond’s in limbo for now. He won’t go anywhere until Altaïr lets him.”

                  He knew: he’d watched them settle a soul in limbo with a finely crafted fantasy to keep them satisfied until they were chosen to live again or to slip away into true death. He’d watched them guard them silently from afar – and he’d watched them ignore the souls slipping too fast to their graves. He only chanced a brief glance at Altaïr; the guilt in their eyes was too much all at once. They knew, he knew. That was enough. He would let them hold onto that for a while, until he was ready to talk.

                  “So what?” We just leave him in a coma till he dies or the world ends?” Lucy spat.

                  “Keep looking,” Altaïr said. “His past holds the key.”

                  They were shivering out of their vessel now, grace restless and burning. The cracks in the floor spread, tiny branches splitting off and multiplying. They focused briefly on Malik, and he thought for an instant he finally saw _them._ The thought froze him for an instant before he lunged, bringing Lucy down over Desmond’s body and shielding her. The grace still burnt spots into his vision.

                  “What the-” Shaun managed before cutting off.

                  Malik released Lucy and stumbled to his feet. He was clumsy and off-balanced, ears ringing from the blast. Lucy stared at him for a moment before turning to Altaïr. There was only a vessel there now, empty and centuries-dead. She turned back to Malik and blinked. The confusion lasted only a moment. Then she pulled herself up along her spine, settling a fine mask of calm over her features.

                  “Shaun, help me hook up Desmond,” she ordered. “Malik, add additional warding. We don’t want anything else getting in here. Rebecca, do you have the latest memory ready?”

                  The other two obeyed rotely, still stunned but compelled to follow her. Shaun gagged at the red ring around Desmond’s neck, hand leaping to his mouth, but he lifted Desmond’s feet when Lucy took his shoulders. Rebecca was already clacking through the keyboard, face pale and focused. They settled him in the chair, and Shaun went to Rebecca’s side as Lucy hooked up the IV. She lingered a moment and let her hand brush back Desmond’s short hair before she straightened again. She turned, eyeing the vessel crumpled on the warehouse floor.

                  “We should…we shouldn’t leave them there,” she said. “It’d be hard to hide if someone came poking around.”

                  Malik nodded after a moment.

                  “I’ll take care of it,” he agreed.

                  She nodded once but didn’t pull her eyes from the lifeless body. Her expression was inscrutable, frighteningly blank.

                  “There’s an old futon in one of the side rooms,” she said. “No one uses it.”

                  _Altaïr’s not there_ , he wanted to remind her. _It’s empty, dead._ But then, she knew, and he understood: the crumpled body was enough to send something primal and tight cinching around his lungs. He was burning with anger for Altaïr, with something that he could almost tell himself was hate, but he shook with something that felt a lot like fear, a lot like love.

                  He knelt to lift the body, and nearly shuddered at the warm weight. _It should be lighter. It should be hollow without them._ It was sentimental, ridiculous. That didn’t stop it from feeling true.

                  The futon was three doors down in what must have been a manager’s office once; an antique computer squatted on a rickety metal desk, and a corkboard was full of decaying flyers and alerts. The whole rom rank not of death but of a slow and awful entropy. Malik settled the body carefully on the futon and straightened. He paused, sickness rolling up at the sight of the limp body heaped carelessly on the cushion. Altaïr wouldn’t care, he knew, and their vessel couldn’t. He still folded the vessel’s bloody arms across their chest and smoothed the rumpled hair.

                  A day later, he found a blanket tucked carefully around the vessel. He didn’t say a word when Lucy passed him in the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND NOW WE FINALLY GET TO THE CHAPTER I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR :D
> 
> I'm really sorry, but this is entire 'verse solely exists for me to play around with the ideas of angels and heaven. Because some obsessions die hard and some just keep coming back.


	27. Chapter Twenty-six

                  It was easiest to believe like this. It always had been. The great glory of Creation furled out before them like an ever shifting painting made by a restless, anonymous Creator. Their grace spilled over to meld into the spaces between the stars, and relief sighed through them like belonging, like home. Ineffable, they’d once said. _Yes. Always._ Here, they could believe there was a Plan, there was a reason for it all – for the stars collapsing into yawning singularities, for the nebulae blossoming into many-fingered columns.

                  Here, they could believe.

                  Eden was calling, its holy-holy-holies streaming down to them. They should go. They would go.

                  But in a minute.

                  They were so very tired, aching down to the core of their grace. Eons pressed down on them, pulverizing, petrified them into something hard and stony. Something far different than what had first slipped out of the darkness into something new and shivery called Grace. They only needed a moment more, just a tiny rest.

                  They let their grace unwind, let it brush against all the universes nestled in their singularities in the great vast everywhere. Universes in which the world was just beginning, and God burnt bright and joyful as He whispered into the shadows _look, look at all that can be made._ Universes in which the Earth was burnt and charcoal-brittle, where archangels stumbled across the ash with bleeding, broken stumps for wings and humanity hid in the sewers. Universes where they had never made that great mistake, where Kadar still sang alongside Gabriel and Malik still curled against their grace at the end of day.

                  Eden’s call came louder, more demanding, and they relented.

                  The heaven they came to glittered. Pearly gates towered at the entrance to a city of gold, far from them along an opalescent bridge. They walked slowly, resisting the shape this heaven pressed on them. It still came, because it was a mold and they were the casting material: the long white robes and peaked hood, the twelve wings folded into simple planes against their back. It was too simple, too flat, but so was this city of alabaster and gilt. Michael had lost their ability to see in multiple dimensions a long time ago.

                  The cherubim heralded them with ringing Enochian and praises to the Merciful and the Mighty. A voice was missing. It had been since the Fall. They kept walking.

                  Looming twin doors led to the throne room. Their panels were ornamented with mother of pearl and raw gold mosaics that showed the holy light of Eden beaming down on faces turned towards the light. Above both the multitude and the light hovered a single angel with twelve wings unfurled around them. Altaïr didn’t bother looking for an inscription.

                  Inside was only a towering dais that seemed to brush the vaulted ceiling of the impossible room. It was gold, of course, the same burnished sheen as the throne on top of it. Michael reclined in it, white-and-gold armor gleaming softly in the ambient light. Altaïr waited at the foot, letting their grace adjust the physics of the room so they did not crane their neck to see Michael.

                  “Where’s your respect, Brother?” Michael called, half-teasing. “You are in the presence of a superior.”

                  “Age does not determine worth,” Altaïr answered.

                  Anger buzzed at the back of their neck, but they kept it in check. Perhaps there was a reason. Perhaps Michael had needed to do what they’d done. They prayed quietly, desperately, for it to be so.

                  Michael’s wings flared at the slight, and their smile tightened and crackled around the edges.

                  “Yes, forgive me,” they drawled. “I forgot you only value certain people – demons and the likewise damned.”

                  Altaïr flinched as if struck across the face.

                  “I have followed your orders for millennia, Michael,” they objected. “I have done all you have asked.”

                  “You have sought appeasement for your own guilt,” Michael spat. “You have tried to make yourself feel better for raising Lucifer and destroying your little pet.”

                  _He was never –_ Altaïr stopped. It wasn’t the point, and much as it hurt to admit, it was true. They had played God with Malik for eons, only realizing how much they really cared when they had already sacrificed him. They hadn’t treated him like a pet but like a stray – a mutt, found alongside the road that always came back no matter how many times they kicked it.

                  “And you?” Altaïr asked quietly. “You have done as Father would wish by trampling Creation between you and Lucifer’s pride?”

                  “You dare-! You consort with demons and kill our own brethren,” Michael snarled. “You dare to lay blame at _my_ feet?”

                  They were leaning forward now, hands braced on the throne’s armrests and wings flared. Altaïr kept their own still and neutral.

                  “You murdered Uriel,” they replied. “You tried to kill Desmond.”

                  A sickly sweet smile pulled across Michael’s lips. It didn’t reach their eyes.

                  “Oh, yes, our darling little brother _Adam_. Father’s favorite mistake,” they purred. “I noticed his soul didn’t pass from Earth, but poor Uriel – your brother from the dawn of creation – you let them slip by just fine.”

                  Guilt curled slick and heavy in Altaïr’s gut, insistent and tugging.

                  “I will not let you destroy Creation,” they warned. “I will not be your warhound.”

                  “You dare defy Father’s will?” Michael demanded.

                  “Father left us eons ago,” Altaïr replied. “He is gone. It is only your will.”

                  The words hurt to say, clawed at their throat as if they didn’t want to be uttered, as if keeping silent would make them any less true. Michael’s golden skin had gone white, rage washing the artificial color from their skin.

                  “That is treason against God Himself,” they hissed.

                  “It is the truth,” Altaïr snapped. “You and Lucifer seek to win Him back by destroying all that He loved – his angels and humans and Creation. It will not work. He is not coming back.”

                  _Please, Brother_ , Altaïr begged. _This will not bring you happiness. This will not fix you._ Michael couldn’t hear them, though; high on the throne their wings had arched and the glamour shuddered against the grace burning white-hot underneath.

                  “How _dare_ you,” they hissed. “You will be punished. You will _burn_.”

                  Altaïr had been stabbed, burnt, beheaded. They’d cut off their own wings and felt Lucifer tear their grace from the very fabric of Eden. That didn’t soften the blow of Michael’s vitriolic hate.

                  “Not yet,” they answered.

                  The stairs toppled as they left, sinking like rotten fruit, like an apple left too long in the sun. Gold fractured under their feet as the illusion shattered and they slipped free of the confines of this heaven. They left ruins behind, crumbling in the feathery branches of a nebula. Confusion sounded behind them, the cherubim interrupted in their hymns, the seraphim shocked out of their patrols.

                  They shed their wings and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's currently on CH29? :D Aw yeah. I'll try to upload the rest of what I've got today or tomorrow.
> 
> Thanks for hanging in there!


	28. Chapter Twenty-seven

                  “I believe you’re lost, Brother.”

                  Altaïr stumbled on the landing, grace half-formed and shaky. Immediately, gentle hands settled on their shoulders and helped pull them back as one. They were trembling, rage and grief and confusion devouring each other in their grace. They ached. The wounds from Michael’s angels burnt and bled white against their starry form, and they just wouldn’t close.

                  “I need your counsel,” Altaïr grit out.

                  “You need Raphael,” their brother corrected, mild.

                  Altaïr hesitated before meeting their brother’s gaze. Ezio wore the shape of an old vessel, with shaggy brown hair and ornate robes layered over broad shoulders. They were frowning, though, unwontedly somber. They released Altaïr but didn’t step back.

                  “Altaïr?” Ezio asked. “What’s going on?”

                  “You have always loved humanity as Father would have us all,” Altaïr started.

                  Ezio laughed and rubbed at the back of their neck in a too-human tic.

                  “Perhaps a bit more,” they admitted with a fond glance over their shoulder.

                  It was easy to follow their gaze to the blonde sitting beyond them. He was garbed in the ridiculous robes that had been in fashion before he died, and he watched with mild curiosity and warmth. A menagerie lay at his feet, lions and hares and wolves, and none of them so much as nipped at each other. An archangel dropping in to visit their brother was hardly the strangest thing in Leonardo’s heaven.

                  “Michael wishes to bring about the Apocalypse,” Altaïr said.

                  Ezio’s expression shifted rapidly – but not to surprise. It was realization and a quiet grief, like they’d assumed Altaïr knew. Altaïr bowed their head and scowled at the white flowers bobbing and swaying at their feet. It sounded obvious aloud, like it’d only been waiting for them to acknowledge it.

                  “I – do not know the right course,” they finished.

                  Ezio laughed. Altaïr jerked upright to find their brother’s head thrown back and whole body shaking. They stared. Finally, slowly, the laughter subsided. Ezio shook their head. There was a small smile still on their lips, but their voice was solemn when they spoke.

                  “Altaïr, you are the only one of us with the knowledge of what is truly right and wrong,” they said. “I don’t know if it is a gift or curse – I never have – but if you are coming to _me_ on whether or not humanity should be destroyed…”

                  They caught Altaïr’s eye and offered a small, kind smile.

                  “You know the answer, brother,” they said.

                  Altaïr’s gut twisted like a hand reaching in and _tugging_. They knew, they knew – they didn’t want to. They didn’t want to know that their brothers were both wrong, that even the right choice wasn’t a good choice this time. They didn’t want it.

                  Ezio’s hand settled warm on Altaïr’s shoulder and startled them out of their thoughts. They younger archangel watched Altaïr with a warm and gentle understanding that didn’t belong on one of God’s greatest weapons. For an instant, Altaïr couldn’t help wondering: had God created Ezio with just enough mercy to decide when to give the killing blow, or had the incessant violence simply worn them down to treasure brief instances of kindness, of grace?

                  “There is someone you should speak to, perhaps,” Ezio suggested.

                  There was a strange hesitancy in their tone, as if they couldn’t help making the offer even if they weren’t sure they should. Altaïr frowned, canting their head to the side. Ezio’s jaw worked briefly before they finally sighed.

                  “Come.”

                  They gripped Altaïr’s wrist loosely in one hand, and a memory sprang unbidden to Altaïr like an overlay: a younger Ezio made of life and blooms and joy, their hand curled around the wrist of an Altaïr who was still unscarred, unblemished, resolute. Altaïr blinked and the image passed.

                  Ezio slid effortlessly past Leonardo’s heaven to another made of an endless field of golden wheat. Only – only this wasn’t a heaven, not truly. This was limbo, a grace-filled cage. It was crafted of song, of Enochian woven into walls to hide and protect. Altaïr’s grace soared, singing up in response to that surrounding them. An angel sat cross-legged in the midst of the field.

                  Uriel was still as Altaïr approached, head tilted back just-so and wings fanned to soak in the ambient glow of Ezio’s grace. Altaïr still counted a dozen opal eyes shifting and focusing on them, but the angel’s body was still as stone. In life, Uriel had constantly fidgeted, buzzed, _moved_. It had nearly driven Altaïr mad, but its absence caused a hollow pang deep in their chest.

                  “You should be with Raphael,” Uriel commented. “Unless you have come to judge me, but then, we both know you are too late for that.”

                  Altaïr folded themselves down beside the younger archangel and let their grace slipslide into a concrete form. Four hands settled against their knees and their wings unfurled enough for the stars within to reflect back the field’s light.

                  “Has your foresight failed you, Uriel?” they asked mildly.

                  “Your judgment seems to have,” Uriel retorted.

                  A silver blue eye on their neck had narrowed into a glare at Altaïr, and some small part of Altaïr wanted to laugh at the pettiness of the jab. It had been so long. Ages since they’d seen each other – epochs since they sat side by side as brothers.

                  “I fear it left long ago,” Altaïr admitted.

                  Their voice was quiet, but the confession was too loud, too painfully honest. They didn’t know when they’d first started lying, but somehow it had become the norm, the expectation. The truth felt new and fragile in their voice. Uriel’s many eyes softened at the admission, more tuned to the way the feeling radiated through Altaïr’s grace than any of their brothers ever had been. They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments, letting the warmth of the artificial peace ease their aches and fears.

                  “Neither of our brother’s plans is fair,” Altaïr continued finally, “but I must choose one.”

                  Uriel’s jaw tightened and several eyes narrowed. They flitted from Altaïr to the surrounding meadow as if they thought Altaïr wouldn’t notice. Ezio had vanished, presumably back to Leonardo’s heaven.

                  “Why?” Uriel finally asked.

                  Altaïr frowned, but their brother continued before they could object.

                  “If – if neither is fair, then why must you choose either?” they asked. “Why can’t you choose another path?”

                  Altaïr’s wings tightened. One hand curled into a fist, claws biting into starry flesh. _Another path?_ It was unthinkable. Impossible. They were Death: they followed a course laid out for them before even the Creator had come forth. They followed life in all its manic twists and turns but they – they did not lead. This was simply another fork in the predestined Plan. Michael’s return to Paradise or Lucifer’s blank slate – those were their choices. They had always been – the two poles at either end of the sphere. There wasn’t a third, there couldn’t be.

                  “I cannot – I,” Altaïr broke off as their wings gave a shuddery twitch.

                  They paused to recompose themselves, to find a way to explain why they could only pick, could not plan themselves.

                  “I follow where I am led,” Altaïr explained carefully. “I reap; I do not sow.”

                  Uriel released a soft breath of air.

                  “Altaïr, you will outlast all of us. Michael may be the First Prince, but you will be the last,” they said. “You will not die until you choose to, while the rest of Creation will someday be waiting for you to guide them from life. It may be eras, may be eons hence, but someday we will die. You will be left.”

                  They broke off, their many eyes distant with thought.

                  “In the end, you will be the one left with all our consequences,” they finished. “If nothing else, you have a say in what those are.”

                  Altaïr shook, trembled, hummed. It was treason against nature, against God. It was – it – they couldn’t – Uriel’s hand rested warm on their skin but it felt miles, leagues away.

                  “Altaïr,” Uriel said as if from a distance, “tell me, what is true?”

                  _Altaïr finds them, of course. It seems Uriel can hide from all their brothers except them, and they always find the younger archangel when they disappear. And always, always they are this shuddering, weeping mess. They fold themselves down beside their brother and wait for the tears to abate._

_A supernova blooms in the distance, asteroids and gas lining the far edges of its petals. They listen to the grace as it adds in this new chapter, this new anecdote in the great ballad of Creation. Then, finally, the weeping stops._

_“Altaïr,” Uriel asks, tremulous, “tell me what is true.”_

_It is what they have waited for, the sign. They stretch their wings so Uriel can nestle into their side, and they let Uriel cling to one dimensionless hand._

_“Father,” they begin, as always. “That death follows all lives…”_

_They keep going until a mortal’s voice would be hoarse, until a mortal would die, and they keep going past that. They keep going as Uriel softens and melts against their side, the electrons of their beings falling into intersecting orbits. They keep going until –_

_“That you are beloved of the beloved,” Altaïr finished, “and you always will be.”_

                  Altaïr laughed, a brittle and petulant thing.

                  “Nothing,” they said. “Nothing is true.”

                  Uriel smiled softly, sadly. They knew the memory their words had drawn, but they didn’t apologize or pull away. Instead one hand came to cup Altaïr’s formless jaw, touch gentle against the raw and bleeding grace.

                  “Then everything must be permitted,” they replied.

                  _Everything is permitted._ It had been centuries since they last heard that creed, those whispered words that promised so much more than their syllables. A calm settled over Altaïr like a pall, heavy and stilling. The eyes on Uriel’s hand widened, flashing open with surprise.

                  “Altaïr-” they started.

                  “Everything is permitted,” Altaïr repeated. “Then perhaps Death can lead to life.”

                  Uriel froze.

                  “Altaïr, no – you cannot,” they started.

                  They shook their head, every countless eye focused on Altaïr and wide. Altaïr straightened their wings to neat folds against their back as their chest began to resettle into a familiar rhythm of expansion and collapse.

                  “It is just,” they said.

                  “It is suicide!” Uriel protested.

                  Altaïr canted their head slightly. Uriel had said it themselves already: Altaïr could not die until they chose to. It was tempting in some way, that old and empty void where no mistakes could be made, no alterations wrought. Once, they would have done anything to shed their wings and grace and slip back into the great vast nothing. Now, they had grown used to the ever-present company of the host and their brothers. The void was nothing but alone.

                  “Perhaps,” they conceded.

                  Uriel was quivering, each eye wide and beseeching.

                  “Lucifer and Michael will be lured by the key,” they continued. “It will be simple.”

                  ‘Simple,’ maybe, but certainly not painless. _Penance_ , they reminded themselves. _Recompense for past wrongs._ It was balanced, equal, fair. It was right.

                  “And Desmond? Lucy?” Uriel pressed. “What of Ezio and Raphael? What of Malik?”

                  “Desmond and Lucy will be safe,” Altaïr replied.

                  They hesitated, their next words raw and aching on their lips.

                  “Malik will be restored to his rightful place,” they finished firmly. “I have not been much of a brother to Ezio and Raphael for many years. They will have little to mourn.”

                  “And you would give up everything?” Uriel pressed.

                  For the first time since they first slipped from the void, Altaïr felt peace.

                  “There is always a counterweight,” they replied.

                  Uriel’s eyes were glistening, wet and round in all their sockets. A pulse of remorse brushed through Altaïr’s grace. They knelt and took Uriel’s hands in all four of theirs.

                  “I have failed you so many times, brother,” they murmured. “Let this be my atonement.”

                  Uriel collapsed, wings crumpling down and eyes unfocused. Altaïr gathered them to their chest, wrapping strong arms and wings around their smaller form. Uriel pressed tighter, bringing their own wings up to fit between Altaïr’s. The feathers striped black and white like piano keys, with stars speckling the flats. Altaïr pulled them tighter and pressed their face into the junction of their neck and shoulder, dedicating every detail of their grace and frame to memory. Uriel wept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a dream that someday I will update a fic not in sporadic, huge-ass dumps but in logical, consistent increments.
> 
> Until then, I'm sorry.
> 
> On the bright side, so many angel snuggles. ALL THE BROTHERS! (and some not-so-brotherly...)
> 
> AN: Guys, I keep making myself sadder as I edit. Like, it's 99% because of all the backstory in my head, but dear god, all the angels just need a lot of therapy and a break. (and for someone to take away all that power)


	29. Chapter Twenty-Eight

_it is screaming it is death it is fire pain lightning he can’t he can’t –_

                  Desmond gulped in air and tried to brace himself against the onslaught. This wasn’t a prophetic dream, but it was just as real – more, maybe.

                  _Lucifer laughs, vessel blistered and bursting. Strange robes cover it, but they match those covering Altaïr and Malik. Blood drenches the robes over Lucifer._

_“Brother, please, we can fix this,” Altaïr begs._

_“Oh can we?” Lucifer purrs. “Is this sacrifice sanctified?”_

_Their voice has a strange singsong quality to it, like they’re careening rapidly towards insanity and don’t care enough to stop._

_“It was not a sacrifice!” Malik shouts._

_Six wings stretch shadow-like from him, rage and grief and aching loss all pulsing through him like blood._

Desmond twitched, fingers flexing, and Lucy jerked before she could catch herself. It was long past when she’d sent Rebecca and Shaun to get some rest, and the only light in the room came from the computers behind her. She’d promised she’d go to bed soon.

                  Three hours later, she sat by Desmond’s side. An empty water bottle dangled from her fingertips; she’d meant to fill it earlier, but she couldn’t quite summon the motivation to move.

                  “He’ll come back, you know.”

                  She whipped around, hand closing around the knife at her hip. Malik raised his hands in placation and dropped down beside her. He’d been quiet since Altaïr left. He still offered jabs and taunts, but it was as if he had to remind himself to do so. She couldn’t quite help the resentment that rose in her each time she was reminded. _Altaïr_ would be fine, and they were deserving of everything they got if they weren’t fine. Desmond – Desmond only wanted to keep the world spinning a little longer. He didn’t deserve any of this.

                  “Why?” she spat. “’cause Altaïr always keeps their word?”

                  Malik exhaled a laugh.

                  “No,” he admitted, “but they sure as hell hate when somebody tries to cheat them.”

                  Lucy frowned. Malik’s reassurances were about what she’d expect from an immortal being, but he seemed to be trying. She chanced a glance at him and let her vision slip past his vessel’s skin.

He’d changed in the past three years. Before, she’d seen only inky black and the skeletal ghosts of wings. Now, there was something else – something gentle and too-bright glowing in the dark. Every once in a while, she caught a glimpse of grace.

She refocused on Desmond and dropped her elbows to her knees to cradle her chin.

“What’re they doing that’s taking so long?” she asked.

Malik sighed and leaned back on his hands.

“Pouting, giving Michael a piece of their mind, contemplating vanishing into the void,” he suggested.

“You suck ass at this comfort thing,” Lucy remarked.

Malik shook his head with a grin.

“They won’t,” he promised. “They’re no good at letting things go.”

It was said like a memory, like an instant of the past come back to the present. Lucy’s eyes narrowed.

“You’ve never said how you two know each other,” she prompted.

“Well, we were bound to run into each other eventually,” he replied, “what with hanging around Desmond and all.”

“Malik.”

 _Worth a shot._ He shrugged. A billion years of memories tumbled through his mind, still bleeding from wounds where pieces had been ripped out as with claws. He knew the order, could guess at the holes. He just wasn’t sure he was ready to share.

“You’re talking thousands of years,” he stalled.

“Demons aren’t the type to forget,” she retorted.

He laughed, startling her. It wasn’t kind or humored. It was cold and bitter like wine, like blood.

“I had a brother once,” he started. “His name was Kadar.”

Her eyes narrowed, but Malik’s gaze had gone distant, slipping past the seam of ceiling and wall to somewhere far away in the past.

“We both worked with Altaïr, but I was…we were closer than Kadar and Altaïr,” he continued. “Kadar idolized them. It felt like idolatry back then. Second worst sin you could have. Not that Altaïr didn’t do enough to encourage it.”

“I thought all angels were brothers,” Lucy prompted.

“Altaïr and I are _not_ brothers,” Malik scoffed immediately before catching himself. “There’s – we’re brothers in arms, but some of us – you gotta’ remember that angels were God’s prototypes for humans. He wanted to know what happened when you bound souls, when you made two or more a part of a whole.”

It hurt to say now that he remembered, now that he could place that hollow ache in his chest.

“The archs are the tightest bound,” he explained, “but me and Kadar – losing him hurt more than all the wings on my back.”

Lucy was watching Desmond again, but her expression was pensive and thoughtful.

“Anyway, Altaïr…messed up,” he said. “They made a mistake and it cost Kadar’s life and my grace.”

Her expression had tightened and hardened, then. She didn’t meet his eyes.

“They made you pay for their mistake?” she spat. “And we’re _trusting_ them?”

“Hey, look at me,” Malik prompted. “No, really.”

She turned towards him reluctantly, lips pressed thin.

“People fall sometimes,” he said. “They fall and sometimes they do horrible, awful, unforgiveable things. And sometimes, they just keep falling and there isn’t a thing you can do.”

Her armor was clicking back into place as a firm and apathetic expression.

“But sometimes they fight like hell to do better, to _be_ better,” he continued. “Sometimes they’re willing to do anything, sacrifice anything, just so they can help right some of their wrongs.”

“And you think Altaïr’s one of the latter?” she prompted.

Her voice was derisive, mocking, but there was a tender flush of hope just underneath.

“I think there’s nothing they want more in the world than to fix it,” he vowed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so much editing to do on this, but I'm not even starting till I finish writing. Sorry.
> 
>  
> 
> AN: Someday I will write a thing and that thing will be about Lucy and Altaïr and their relationship and similarities and issues. Today's not that day. But someday.


	30. Chapter Twenty-Nine

                  I have failed I have failed I have failed

_It echoes through them like a scream, like the animal sound that escaped Malik as his brother crumpled under the demons’ weight. They flee._

                  Altaïr jerked upright gasping.

                  “Good morning to you, too, sunshine,” Malik greeted.

                  Altair panted, shaking in their vessel’s skin. All of a sudden it was too small, too tight. They felt as if they’d burst its skin.

                  “Altair?” Malik asked, leaning forward.

                  Altair’s hands clenched, too few too few – they forced the tremors to stop. When they swallowed, their throat clicked, and Malik watched with worry honest in his eyes. It made them sick.

                  “Why are you here?” they asked before they could stop themselves.

                  It was too much to ask, too much to let out of their careful grip, but it was too late to take it back. Malik recoiled slightly before straightening with a not-quite-nonchalant laugh.

                  “Somebody’s gotta’ watch your back, novice,” he replied.

                  Altair opened their mouth to object, but Malik cut them off.

                  “You look like shit,” he commented, “and since you didn’t clean up when you dropped back in, I’m gonna’ guess you’re not bothering.”

                  He straightened and offered his hand.

                  “There’s a hose in the back,” he explained.

                  When Altair made no motion to follow, Malik tugged on their wrist to pull them to standing. They obeyed. Blood had clotted in the fine edges of their feathers and around the hole in the wrist Malik didn’t hold. The rest of their vessel was equally battered: their clothes were tattered, and bruises covered any spot that wasn’t blood-soaked. They couldn’t afford to waste their grace on something so trivial, though. They would heal in time without it.

                  The rest of the team was still asleep in one way or another, and the back room was empty. Someone had rigged a small curtain up in one corner and threaded a hose through one of the loops. A tin can was hooked to the end with a loop of wire, small holes punched out of its bottom. Malik dropped Altair’s wrist to reach down and tug his t-shirt off by the hem before bending to unlace his boots. He paused and gave Altair an expectant look.

                  “You’re gonna’ have to strip,” he prompted.

                  Altair’s brow furrowed. This was incredibly inappropriate, to say nothing of unwarranted.

                  “I am not – I do not want this,” they said stiffly.

                  Malik’s blue eyes narrowed, hand still reaching for his laces. He straightened abruptly with an exasperated sigh.

                  “I’ve got standards, Feathers,” he retorted. “You’re gonna’ scare the shit out of the kids if you show up like that. Now c’mon.”

                  He knelt to untie his laces, and Altair gingerly pulled their own shirt off. It stuck to the dried blood over their chest and back, and they gave a firm tug to break it free. Scarlet trickled down their skin. Malik tossed Altair’s ruined shirt far from the neat stack of his own clothing.

                  “Uh-uh,” he chided. “No way that’s get all over my clothes. Some of us don’t have grace to recreate whatever the hell we want.”

                  Altair’s lips thinned.

                  “You steal yours,” they objected.

                  “I borrow,” Malik corrected, “and it takes a lot of effort to hunt ‘em down every time.”

                  He gave Altair a push into the shower and reached around them to crank on the spigot. The curtain only reached Altair’s chin, and the water spat out chilly and rust-red. Altair didn’t seem to notice; they stepped forward without a word when Malik pressed on their back. Their half-furled wings were stiff and tight, like the dried blood had gotten stuck in their joints, and the pinions brushed against the curtain. Their chest was pitched forward to compensate for the weight of twelve half-open wings, but there was an added slump to their shoulders, like the weight resting there was twice the world’s.

                  Malik swallowed and reached for the bar of soap sitting on a rickety stool just out of the water’s range. Altair shied away from Malik’s first touch before visibly forcing themselves to still. Malik bit his teeth together.

                  Blood flaked off in dark brown flecks, revealing deep cuts that were weeks from healing. He worked his way through the wounds criss-crossing Altair’s vessel, working the blood off their dark skin and soothing over the livid bruises. Once their skin was washed, he shifted to the black wings crowding the small shower. He combed through them gently, fingers catching on dried blood and bent feathers. Altair didn’t say a word.

                  “You didn’t have time to see Raphael on your tour of Eden?” Malik asked finally.

                  His fingers were working over a crumpled flight feather, straightening its crooked shaft.

                   A heavy sigh collapsed Altair’s lungs, and their wings shuffled just slightly.

                  “I will throttle the next to say that,” they warned.

                  Malik paused knuckle-deep in the dark feathers and cocked his head.

                  “Even Desmond?”

                  Altair shifted enough to shoot and unamused look over their shoulder but dropped it after a moment to let their head hang heavy on their neck. Their spine was prominent like this, the weight pulling their skin taut over hard, knobby vertebrae. The urge to trail his fingertips along it burnt up through Malik’s chest, somehow prompted by the knowledge that he had, once. That he had been allowed to.

                  He shook his head and returned to the task at hand. They were both silent for a long while, the only noises the pattering of the water and the soft sounds of breath. Then –

                  “How much do you remember?”

                  Malik had shifted to the other wing to wash blood from a through-and-through. He froze, knuckles locking in place. He willed his hands back into motion after a moment and continued the circular pattern he’d been making.

                  “Not everything,” he admitted, “but enough.”

                  He smoothed the surrounding feathers and began running his hands through the slick layers. There were no more wounds to clean; all that was left was for them to heal.

                  “I know it was your fault I fell,” he said. “I know why. I remember screaming for you.”

                  It was a cruel test, Malik could admit, but then, he’d been working for nearly a thousand years. Altair’s wings tightened as if they wanted to pull in and protect their core. Malik’s fingers were trapped between them. His lips quirked in a not-quite-pleased smile, and he worked them free to resume the methodical massage he’d started.

                  “I remember you and Maria. I remember all of Creation before the Fall,” he continued. “I remember your Eden.”

                  A shudder broke through Altair’s frame, and in anyone other than them, Malik would have expected to hear a sob. It didn’t come of course. He didn’t think Altair knew how to let themselves grieve; it seemed that information had been deemed unnecessary somewhere along the line. He could remember –

                  _Lucifer._ Lucifer. _The light of Eden, the glowing glory of God – how could they? How? Malik shakes, their grace jittery and restless. They drop their blade, let the clatter of it echo their nerves. They are steeped in their brothers’ grace as if a great bucket had been upended over them, tainting them._ Altair. _Where are they – where? They need to find them, need to make sense of this. Need –_

_Altair walks to them with twelve wings where fourteen once were and a hollow mask where grief, rage, hurt should be. Malik reaches for them, but the archangel steps away._

                  “I remember loving you,” Malik admitted, soft, into the clatter of water on tin and concrete.

                  “And now?” Altair asked.

                  The spoke in whispers, their words little more than thoughts willed into the air. His chest ached with the way it cinched tighter and tighter as if it were a corset made of ribs. Finally, he let his hand go, let it reach up and trace feather-light against Altair’s spine. He wrote there what his lips couldn’t say, the Enochian ancient and powerful beyond the meager capabilities of words.

                  Altair broke, shoulders caving and legs shaking. Malik caught them, only barely, and pulled them close. Altair trembled in his arms, fragile and vulnerable in a way they had no right to be. Malik traced gentle circles into their skin and held a little tighter than he needed to. Altair didn’t cry, didn’t make a sound. They simply shook and trembled and ached in Malik’s arms. Abruptly, one hand shifted to grasp the pendant around their neck.

                  “I should have given this to you long ago,” they said.

                  Their hand slid up to pull the necklace off, and for a breathless moment, Malik could feel his grace singing to him. He could have his wings, his grace; he could be whole again.

                  He stopped them.

                  “What good will it do now?” he prodded. “I am a demon, Altair. The grace would only kill me.”

                  “But it is yours,” they objected.

                  “Then keep it safe for me,” he replied.

                  Altair’s shoulders slumped. There was defeat in every line of their body. They straightened carefully, pulling themselves from Malik’s arms. His skin ached with the loss. When they spoke, they didn’t meet his eyes.

                  “I need your help,” they confessed.

                  “I’m here,” Malik promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And suddenly the tagged pairing shows up! Only 38k in! (I'm really sorry about that. And everything else. Just, lots of apologies.)


	31. Chapter Thirty

                Desmond had discovered at some point that the Animus was…peaceful. Sure, it was a little weird, but it made sense. He didn’t have to weigh and finagle and decide. He did as the memories willed, like a ghost tagging along on his ancestors’ journeys. It was simple.

                Every so often, he’d get a strange impression, a feeling that something large was nearby – something heavy with purpose and focus _watching_ him. Each time, cold raced down his spine and fear cinched his lungs tight. Whatever it was, he didn’t try to spot it.

                He focused back on Connor, on grabbing that limb just-so and adjusting his weight just right to roll when he hit the snow-laden ground. The feeling would fade eventually. He stood and shook the flakes from his shoulders and quiver. The homestead was a mile off, only identifiable by the faintest tendril of smoke curling up towards the snow-grey sky.

_Desmond._

                He flinched and kept walking.

_Desmond._

_No._ Not here. Not in this place. He was free from all of that. He didn’t have to worry about angels and prophecies and destiny. Not here.

_Desmond. Stop._

                His feet stopped without his say-so, frozen in six inches of snow. The voice wasn’t Altair’s, but it had a similar ancient gravity. It was a voice that made you _listen._

                “No,” he whispered in Connor’s voice. “No. Go away.”

                Snow crunched behind him. He closed his eyes. If he could only get his feet to move, to keep heading home, it would be okay. He could stay. He wouldn’t have to leave.

_Desmond, please. We need to talk._

                 “No,” he repeated.

                The footsteps were slow and measured like their maker was trying not to startle Desmond. His shoulders prickled.

_I cannot leave until we speak._

                “Get out of my fucking head!”

_I can’t._

                The footsteps had stopped, and warmth radiated in front of him. The intruder made no attempt to speak; their breath whispered in and out at a steady, even rhythm. Desmond grit his teeth and opened his eyes.

                It was Connor.

                “What,” he croaked.

 _No – not quite._ The – angel or demon or _hell_ , spirit – wearing Connor didn’t have his ancestor’s loose posture or natural calm. They were pulled in and braced against his flesh as if supporting a dozen wings, and they watched him with an inscrutable expression that was somehow kinder than Altair’s, more understanding. _Angel, then._

                “What the hell,” he exhaled.

_I apologize, but you are wearing my vessel. It was unavoidable._

                He grimaced, pressing a hand to his temple.

                “Can you stop that?” he asked. “The whole talking in the head thing is kinda’ freaky.”

                The angel paused with a minute frown on their face. They opened their mouth with a quiet click as if had been sealed shut for centuries.

                “My apologies,” they offered.

                He’d heard the voice a hundred times before – from his own throat. Coming from Connor’s doppelganger, it sent him spinning.

                “We need to speak.”

                “Yeah, got it the first time,” Desmond muttered.

                The angel’s frown deepened and watched him. Even after sixteen years of Altair’s constant presence, Desmond had never gotten used to angels’ ability to command attention through nothing more than applied force of will. He couldn’t stop himself from turning back to the angel.

                “Fine,” he relented. “What do we need to talk about?”

                “You will wake soon,” they said. “Altair has returned.”

                Despite himself, Desmond felt relief and a bright spring of joy bubble up in him. It was peaceful here, it was simple. It was an illusion, and it was time for him to go. When the angels had attacked, Connor had been little more than a boy. Now, he was a grown man with his father’s blood ground into his hands.

                “They are planning something stupid,” the angel continued.

                There was exasperation there, like a brother constantly having to pull back their idiot sibling from reckless plans. Desmond’s eyebrows rose.

                “They will spin it when they tell you, but Malik will know it is a lie,” they explained. “He will help you.”

                “Help me?” Desmond echoed. “Help me with what?”

                The angel tilted their head just slightly, eyes narrowed and evaluating. Desmond couldn’t read their expressions well, and he itched to move, to get away from the angel’s appraisal. Then, finally –

                “You must stop Altair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I thought I uploaded this earlier! I've fallen a bit behind on NaNo, so I'll be trying to fix that this week. Hope you guys enjoy!


	32. Chapter Thirty-One

                  “Hey, can I ask you something?”

                  Altair glanced over, expectant. It was late, deep in the still of night, and they’d elected to let the team rest a little longer. They slept so little as it was, and they would get none in the coming days.

                  “Why’d you keep it?” Malik asked. “I mean, you’ve exiled thousands of angels, and you didn’t keep their grace.”

                  The angel turned back to their examination of the stars, hands resting limply on their thighs. They were silent for a long while, and Malik sighed. He wasn’t sure if he’d expected an answer, but he wouldn’t have minded.

                  “It was my last remnant of home,” they said.

                  Malik jerked towards them, a wash of grief swamping through him. _Oh, Altair._ He longed to reach out, to wrap his arms around Altair and try to hold all their fractured pieces together. Once upon a time, the archangel would have welcomed it. They had always been tactile, needy with their affection; they’d loved nothing so much as wrapping themselves around and between Malik and Maria’s grace. He and Maria had used to laugh about it and tease them. It stopped after Lucifer fell and took Maria with them. Altair had changed then, pulling away and creating a distance between themselves and everything else.

                  Malik could see it now and trace its origin, but at the time, he’d only been hurt and confused. Hindsight, as always.

                  “It doesn’t have to be,” he offered. “You don’t have to do this.”

                  “You and Uriel,” Altair murmured.

                  They dropped their gaze and shook their head slightly. Their gaze slipped distant, past the shadowy ground several stories below.

                  “I have made so many mistakes, Malik,” they confessed.

                  They didn’t finish, but it hung in the air, unsaid. _I don’t want to make any more. I want to fix this and take them to my grave._ Malik reached out and took Altair’s hand. The angel seemed to sigh with their whole body. _Olani hoath ol_. He willed it to pass through him, through whatever grace lingered in his charcoal soul to Altair. A moment later, he felt a wash of glory, of something pure and divine slip through his own fingers. A choir of stars and planets and grace sang his words back to him. His heart stuttered.

                  They sat there in silence, hands folded tight together, as the night deepened and slowly grew light. Dawn crept grey along the horizon when Altair finally pulled themselves up along their spine.

                  “We should get the others,” they said.

                  “Yeah,” Malik agreed with a sigh.

                  He stood, letting their fingers slide away. A star still glimmered out in the lightening sky, faint and stubborn in its light.

                  “Altair-” he started.

                  The angel stopped and turned, only two steps away. Malik reached out before he could think about it and pulled them close. It was only a brush of lips, a soft and chaste promise, but there was a desperation clawing at the insides of Malik’s chest. _Niis adagita ol._

                  Altair pressed a four-fingered hand to his cheek and stepped away. Malik caught their answer on the breeze, as if it had ecaped without their permission.

                  _Olani gemeganza. Olani gemeganza._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I really need to stop ending chapters with a single sentence of dialogue. Like, really.
> 
>  
> 
> AN: Angels make me sad and I want them to make you sad, too.  
> pseudo-Enochian in this chapter:  
> Olani hoath al - "I love you."  
> Niis adagita al - "Come back to me."  
> Olani gemeganza - "I will."


	33. Chapter Thirty-Two

                  Desmond woke with a gasp and a jerk, lunging upright. The IVs tore his skin, fingers dug holes into the cheap fabric of the chaise, and his eyes shone with an eerie gold light. Altair released him, dropping their hand as they took a step back.

                  “Desmond?” Lucy asked.

                  Malik shifted, too, straining to get a good look. Desmond’s head jerked towards him with a rigid, robotic twist. Breath catching in his chest, Malik froze. He’d seen those eyes before, but never in a human. They were the same color as Altair’s, as Lucifer’s, as an angel at war.

                  Desmond shuddered. His shoulders caved in, entire frame shrinking from Malik and Altair. His brow wrinkled in an uneasy contortion of fear and confusion.

                  _He can see us._

                  “Desmond?” Lucy repeated.

                  “What-” he started before cutting out. “So, that’s what you two look like. God, _Altair._ ”

                  His voice was faint and breathless. Even Shaun had craned his neck around the computer bank to stare at him, but Desmond spared them no attention. His focus was locked on Altair and Malik, and Malik felt sympathy course through him at Desmond’s remark. He didn’t have to look to know what Desmond saw: holes, deep and bloody from angels’ blades and from things much more damaging – loss and hate and doubt.

                  “What are you talking about?” Rebecca prompted.

                  Desmond gestured vaguely towards Malik and Altair. His throat worked for a moment before he startled blinking, trying to clear his eyes.

                  “They – uh – they look different than I expected."               

                  Shaun and Rebecca turned towards Malik and Altair before immediately turning back to Desmond. Only Lucy’s expression cleared.

                  “Oh,” she breathed. “ _Oh._ You can _see_ them.”

                  He nodded slowly. Tugging his gaze away, he finally locked onto hers.

                  “Beautiful,” he said. “Terrifying.”

                  It was said like a password, a code to a lock only the two of them knew. Lucy took half a step forward before catching herself.

                  “Altair-” she started.

                  Before she could finish, they had pressed their hand to Desmond’s forehead and his eyes had cleared. Something lingered there, distant like awe. His gaze followed Altair as they resettled beside Malik.

                  “So,” Rebecca started.

                  “We have a plan,” Lucy announced.

                  Desmond’s eyebrows rose.

                  “ _Altair_ has a plan,” Rebecca amended.

                  “I thought we already had a plan,” Desmond said.

                  From the expressions on the other humans’ faces, they had, too.

                  “This one is slightly less likely to end with _all_ of us dead,” Malik replied.

                  His voice was drier than usual, gaze pointedly directed away from Altair. _‘Malik will know it is a lie.’_ Desmond focused.

                  “There is a key in Syria,” Altair explained. “It is guarded by powerful wards. If we lure Lucifer and Michael there, we can stop them.”

                  Malik grit his teeth and focused on the trio before them. They all looked skeptical, but Desmond’s eyes were narrowed, suspicious.

                  “How come you didn’t tell us this before?” Desmond asked.

                  “The key is nearly impossible to retrieve,” Altair replied. “Almost any other key would be more easily accessed.”

                  Lucy’s eyebrows rose.

                  “Then why are we going after this one now?” she demanded.

                  “’cause you’re not going for the key,” Malik replied.

                  Altair’s lips tightened but didn’t refute it.

                  “The spells guarding the key are powerful enough to banish both Michael and Lucifer from Earth,” they clarified. “If used in the right way, the spells can keep them from returning.”

                  “And you know how to use them ‘the right way’?” Rebecca asked.

                  “Yes,” Altair affirmed.

                  Lucy was still frowning, and she opened her mouth to speak.

                  “Okay,” Desmond agreed. “If you know what you’re doing, I trust you.”

                  Lucy’s mouth clicked shut, and her eyes narrowed at him. Malik couldn’t help matching her suspicion. Desmond’s expression had shifted into something subtle and beseeching. He rubbed at the back of his neck and didn’t quite meet Altair’s gaze.

                  “Altair, do you think – I know it’s kinda’ a hassle,” he started, “but could you maybe check in on my mom?”

                  The room was silent with surprise.

                  “I just – she worries all the time, and I haven’t talked to her in weeks,” he explained. “Just – in case things go – well, just in case, I’d like to know she’s okay.”

                  _Clever kid_. Malik kept his quiet approval tucked behind an understanding expression and hoped Altair didn’t look too hard.

                  “I can keep watch while you’re gone,” he offered. “They’ll be safe.”

                  Altair still looked hesitant, eyes scouring Malik’s face. A beat, two, and then they inclined their head just-so and vanished. Malik stared at the spot where they’d been before closing his eyes and exhaling.

                  “Y’know, you might want to finally get that figured out before the world ends,” Desmond remarked.

                  Malik turned to the trio with a raised eyebrow.

                  “What?” he demanded.

                  In any other situation, their matching expressions would have been amusing. The disbelief centered on him wasn’t. Shaun lifted his hand to make a vague gesture at Malik and the space beside him.

                  “You could always use the futon,” Rebecca offered, blunt.

                  Malik stared at them before closing his eyes and willing himself not to just give up. These _three are gonna’ save the world?_

                  “It’s not like that, kids,” he sighed. “Anyway, what’s on your mind, Des? That wasn’t exactly subtle.”

                  Desmond grimaced.

                  “Think they bought it?” he asked.

                  “Well, they’re not here,” Malik replied, dropping onto a crate. “But they will be, so spill.”

                  “Right,” Desmond said before scratching at his neck again. “Well, actually, it’s kind of you I have a question for. What’s Altair really planning?”

                  “Suicide,” Malik answered.

                  It was easy, somehow, to keep his voice emotionless. It was much harder to actually imagine the grief that would come when Altair died.

                  To his surprise, Desmond’s mouth made an ‘o’ of understanding and he nodded.

                  “That’s what they meant,” he breathed.

                  Fortunately, he didn’t take much prompting to continue.

                  “An angel visited me in the Animus. I don’t know who it was, but they said Connor was their vessel,” he explained. “They told me Altair was planning something stupid and we needed to stop them.”

                  “How?”

                  It was Rebecca, tired lines straining her face. She glanced around at the others.

                  “Sorry, but how are we supposed to stop the archangel of death from committing suicide to save the world?” she glanced down before adding, “and why?”

                  Desmond stared while the rest of the room averted their gaze. He could hear Rebecca fiddling with her keys.

                  “I mean, I’ve got no beef with Altair,” Rebecca continued, “but if they’re willing to do this to _save Earth_?”

                  The question lingered, unanswered.

                  “I can’t,” Desmond said.

                  He wrung his hands, brow scrunched.

                  “They’ve fucked up, sure, but – Altair?” he said. “They’ve always tried to do what’s best. I can’t just let them kill themselves if I can stop it.”

                   A hand dropped onto his shoulder, small and warm, but when Lucy spoke, it wasn’t to Desmond.

                  “How can we stop them?” she asked Malik, instead.

                  The demon pursed his lips and glanced away. His right hand rubbed at his left arm as if trying to massage feeling back into it. Desmond eyes narrowed, but he didn’t press. There were bigger concerns, again, always. He’d ask someday.

                  “We don’t,” Malik replied, “but we can help them.”

 

                  “So, we get Altair a boost,” Rebecca summed. “ _How?_ ”

                  Malik grinned and spread his arms. The smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, but he gave it a good try.

                  “Cure me,” he replied.

                  Silence. _Aw, c’mon – nothing?_ Shaun squinted at him, and the rest of the room shared a confused glance. Malik sighed and dropped his arms.

                  “Altair has my grace,” he explained. “Right now, it would kill me – burn me from the inside out. But you can cure a demon, make it human. You do that, and the grace will give me back my wings. I can help Altair, then.”

                  “Why haven’t they asked you, then?” Shaun asked.

                  Malik’s gaze slid over Desmond and met Lucy’s.

                  “Penance.”

                  She swallowed and nodded.

                  “How do we cure you without Altair noticing?” she asked.

                  “You can’t.”

                  The four flinched as one. Altair’s arms were crossed, expression inscrutable. Malik’s, on the other hand, was painfully wide-eyed.

                  “Rose is safe. She misses you and worries,” Altair said, clipped.

                  “Altair-” Desmond started.

                  “Whatever plans you are making, mind that they do not interfere with the greater goal,” they warned.

                  Their voice was tight as a tripwire, as smooth and treacherous as dark ice. They turned away, a twitch of their wings leaving nothing in their stead. Desmond’s shoulders collapsed.

                  “Shit,” Shaun swore.

                  “I’ll take care of them,” Malik said, standing.

                  His back crackled as he straightened, and he looked the way Altair had left with exhausted eyes. Desmond bit his lip. Lucy’s hand had tightened on his shoulder when Altair arrived; her fingers dug into the space between his clavicle and trapezius.

                  “Malik, stop!” Desmond called. “I’ll – I’ll take care of it.”

                  The demon started in surprise, and Lucy’s hand clenched harder. He stood, carefully dislodging her hand. He held it in his own a little longer than necessary.

                  “I’ve got a few things to ask them anyway,” he explained with a small smile.

                  “Okay,” she agreed. “Okay.”

                  He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and turned to leave. Malik was watching him with a curious expression, one that reminded Desmond of Altair – a canted head, a subtle frown. The angel had rubbed off on the demon, it seemed. Desmond took a deep breath and shoved through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the plot thickens!
> 
> Or, more accurately, stumbles along in a thick fog and runs repeatedly into thorn bushes. But, y'know, same diff.


	34. Chapter Thirty-Three

                  The warehouse was empty for all Desmond could tell. Each door opened into a side room filled with only old papers and detritus. Even the main holds were empty, the rafters bare of any sulking angels.

                  “Jesus,” he huffed.

                  He dropped his arms to his sides, staring up at the ceiling and trying to spot a single sign. There were none to be found. _Where the hell are they?_ It took a moment before an old memory surfaced: glancing out the window to two familiar shapes sitting on the edge of the roof. He headed for the nearest staircase.

                  Altair stood on the far edge, wings folded neatly but hiding the shape of their shoulders. Desmond swallowed. He might as well start with the big guns.

                  “Why’d you kill my dad?” he asked.

                  Altair flinched. They’d expected the question eventually, but it was different to hear it aloud. Desmond always edged around the things that mattered like he was standing on the edge of a spike-filled trap. Altair could empathize.

                  “And don’t lie,” Desmond added. “It’d be pointless.”

                  “I would not lie,” Altair said before amending, “I would not lie about that.”

                  Desmond’s lips thinned and he frowned. Altair recognized the expression but not from Desmond’s face. They turned their focus back to the morning horizon.

                  “Your father was one of the best Assassins,” Altair explained.

                  They paused, the words unwieldy on their tongue. Justification had never been their strong suit: they did what they did because it was just, because it was God’s will. Without God, though, it suddenly seemed difficult.

                  “He was also very driven,” they finally continued. “He would stop at nothing to achieve his end. It is what led to your mother’s death. Had he lived, you would have been destroyed by his choices. You would have hidden yourself from me and been destroyed by the Animus.”

                  Even speaking the words made something hollow and hard ache in Altair’s chest. They had prevented that course, they knew. They had made it so it never was – but they couldn’t stop the feeling that some fates were inevitable. That even death couldn’t stop the slow roll of destiny.

                  “I could not let that happen,” they admitted.

                  Desmond’s jaw trembled, and he blinked back tears pricking at his eyes. There was something new in Altair’s voice, something that hungered like sorrow, like loss. It was as if they had lived through that possibility once and could still feel the grief aching in their chest.

                  “So what?” Desmond asked. “Now everything’s hunky dory?”

                  “You are alive to stop the apocalypse,” they answered. “That is the best I could do.”

                  The admission burnt like acid up their throat, the confession to being less than what was needed. They should have been used to it by now, should have been accustomed to the failures they wracked up like points. They weren’t.

                  Desmond was silent for a long while.

                  “What happens after this – to you?” he asked finally.

                  _There will be nothing left of me after this._ Altair took in a slow breath. Somehow even Malik held the unreasonable belief that there were ‘good guys’ and the good guys didn’t deserve to die. He didn’t seem to remember that redemption required blood.

                  “If we fail, Michael or Lucifer will have punishment to mete out and then they will call me back to Eden,” they said. “If we succeed – nothing.”

                  _Liar._ Desmond nodded slightly, but his brow furrowed.

                  “Eden – you said you couldn’t go back,” he pointed out.

                  Altair hesitated, inclining their head in both concession and thought. They were surprised Desmond had remembered; it had been a revelation and admission, something that startled Altair even as their lips shaped the words.

                  “I cannot go back to the Eden that once was – the Eden that was my home,” they clarified. “It has been lost for centuries.”

                  “There’s no way you can get it back?” Desmond asked.

                  There was a quiet hopelessness in his voice that begged _tell me I’m wrong, tell me I can go back, just tell me please._ Had they the power to, Altair was sure they would turn back time and lift from Desmond the burden that bowed his shoulders and weighed down his singularity of a soul. As it was, that was a power given only to an absent god.

                  “No,” Altair admitted instead, “but there is still good. The world is not empty without it.”

                  Desmond swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

                  “I’m sorry,” he burst out. “I’m sorry you got stuck down here with me. I’m sorry you lost your home and – and everything. I’m sorry.”

                  Altair’s wings flared, shoulders stiffening. They turned to face Desmond fully.

                  “Desmond, I chose to protect you,” they stated.

                  They forced all the belief and truth they had into their voice. They would have Desmond know and believe it if it took the rest of eternity – Michael and Lucifer’s apocalypse be damned. They’d missed something along the way. They’d somehow let this most important duty fall by in the face of their own dilemmas and cruxes. Perhaps it was because Altair was about to take on their greatest challenge, and perhaps it was because there would never be another chance if it all went to plan. They couldn’t tell which. Perhaps both.

                  “I was never forced to guard you,” they vowed. “I chose it.”

                  Desmond stared straight forward. His dark eyes were fixed on the last of the night’s stars.

                  “The Eden I lost – the _home_ you speak of – it was gone before your greatest grandparents were even thoughts in their parents’ minds,” Altair continued.

                  _That_ was an admission they hadn’t needed. It ripped at the center of their chest, something raw and weeping even though the veracity held. Some wounds, it seemed, just never healed clean.

                  “Why’d you chose to stay down here, then? It’s gotta’ suck. I mean, you’re made for Heaven, not here,” Desmond asked.

                  “Because you are my brother,” Altair explained.

                  Desmond blinked once, twice. Then, finally, he turned his head towards Altair. He squinted, as if he was trying to see something too far away.

                  “What,” he stated more than asked.

                  Altair turned their head back to the sky.

                  “Adam and Eve’s line continued on after the Fall, after Cain and Abel,” they explained. “It is why you are able to use the Animus, why so many of your ancestors are assassins and vessels. Ezio, Haytham, Evie – our vessels come from your family. You are the brother of archangels.”

                  They could feel Desmond staring at them, but they didn’t shift to meet his gaze quite yet. There were so many confessions to be made, and they didn’t have the strength to look him in the eye for all of them.

                  “I have failed my brothers,” they continued. “I have failed them over and over again. I cannot fail again. I will not.”

                  Desmond bowed his head, swallowing and working through the tangle of emotions and thoughts knotting up in his chest. He couldn’t doubt the honesty in Altair’s voice. He knew they spoke the truth. His next words were careful, selected with precision.

                  “You won’t, Altair,” he vowed. “I know it. But – killing yourself? That’s just going to leave me alone again.”

                  He rubbed the back of his neck.

                  “That’s why we want to try the trials,” he explained. “Maybe they won’t work but – but there’s a chance they will and a chance that you won’t have to die.”

                  “And if they fail?” Altair asked. “Will you grant me permission to do what I must then?”

                  Desmond swallowed and forced himself to meet their eyes.

                  “Yeah,” he agreed. “If we fail, you can do whatever you have to, then.”

                  Altair gave a small, tight nod and turned their gaze back to the horizon. The sun was just starting to creep up, a sliver of brightness in a world still painted in greys. Desmond shifted his weight and snuck a glance at the angel. For the first time in his memory, they looked…peaceful. He wished he felt the same.

                  “So uh do angels give their brothers hugs?” he finally asked.

                  It was meant as a joke except for how his voice trembled and cracked in the question. Altair seemed to understand anyway. They folded him into their arms and brought their wings around them both. They weren’t warm, weren’t soft, but they were firm and comforting in a way Desmond hadn’t expected from the angel. He wondered briefly if, on another plane, each wing was an arm, if on another, each wing was Altair. He settled into the comfort of it without voicing any of those questions.

                  It was only once they’d released him and headed back towards the room that Desmond paused. He glanced over to catch Altair’s eye.

                  “Hey, if I’m Adam, what happened to Eve?” he asked.

                  Altair hesitated, sight slipping past Desmond into the other room. Lucy was directing Shaun and Malik on backing up their data while Rebecca repaired the Animus. It was easy to see her grace, the way it haloed her like hazy gold.

                  “She went looking for answers,” they answered.

                  Desmond frowned. The phrase trigged a memory, but it hadn’t quite clicked.

                  “Did she find them?” he asked, cautious.

                  “Yes,” Altair replied.

                  _Terribly, fearfully, yes._ Desmond’s expression shifted and dropped; something fragile and honest appeared as he understood. He glanced towards the room and back at Altair. Then he pulled himself up, swallowed, and stepped through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I do actually know how this is going to end. Just so y'all know. I have no clue if it'll make any sense, but it makes sense in my head. So far, anyway. 
> 
> Actually, I think it'll be done in maybe 3-4 chapters, so! 
> 
> As always, thank you guys so much for the comments and kudos! You have no idea the embarrassing happy dance I do whenever I see them :)


	35. Chapter Thirty-Four

                  Something clicked in the team after that, though none of them could say what exactly. Altair knew the trials, had them written into their very bones, and Malik filled in with details he’d forgotten he knew. Convincing the team to let Desmond complete the trials was more of a struggle, but they ceded eventually. They didn’t have time to argue.

                  Killing the hellhound came first. Desmond trembled and shook as the blood dripped black off his hands and skin. He’d never killed before. He’d never done anything more than wrestle and yell. Life, however tainted, however perverted, now stained his hands. He twisted and vomited into a nearby trashcan. Lucy looked on with sympathy but didn’t try to stop him.

                  Next was releasing a soul from Hell. Malik stepped up, and the rest of the room descended into confused chaos. Altair silenced them.

                  “Souls and grace are too obvious,” they declared. “Desmond will attract enough attention. If I or another of you were to accompany him, you would be found and destroyed. Malik will keep him safe.”

                  There was an order there as sure as the promise.

                  “What soul are we releasing, then?” Shaun prompted. “I assume we don’t want Hitler getting into Heaven.”

                  Malik met Altair’s gaze for a moment, lips thinned. The conversation there was far above the humans’ heads. Finally, Malik nodded once.

                  “Yeah, he’d work,” he murmured.

                  He steadied himself and glanced towards the humans.

                  “One who never deserved to go there in the first place,” he explained.

                  That was all they got out of him. Then Malik gripped Desmond and yanked, and the rest of the room only had their empty bodies. Lucy started a timer on her phone. Altair settled both bodies on the ground.

                  They waited.

                  “Holy shit,” Desmond gasped.

                  Fire roared around them, stone halls cutting through the conflagration. Malik squinted slightly before relaxing. His hand was insistent and prodding on Desmond’s upper back.

                  “C’mon, kid, we don’t have time to stand around,” he warned.

                  Desmond swallowed and followed his directions. The stone catwalk seemed to twist and contort in impossible ways, like a staircase that wove round and round and never got you anywhere. Malik walked as if he knew exactly where they were going, though, and Desmond didn’t bother asking as they descended. The flames grew colder, slowly solidifying into jagged ice. Desmond’s breath plumed into the air in soft white clouds. They kept walking.

                  They didn’t quite reach the bottom; there was still a chasmic pit below, but Desmond couldn’t imagine going any lower. The cell they stopped before had no door; it was rough rock studded with ice, but it was open. Its occupant didn’t seem to notice. They cowered against the far wall with wide blue eyes and hollow flesh. They trembled without a noise.

                  _Oh._ Desmond froze, recognition kicking in. He remembered that face, though he remembered it contorted and twisted by Lucifer’s hate, and he remembered it smooth and placid as Lucifer taunted their brother.

                  “That’s your brother,” he breathed. “That’s Kadar.”

                  Malik watched the prisoner with soft, sad eyes and shook his head slightly.

                  “No,” he replied. “My brother is dead. His grace was destroyed. That is his vessel.”

                  He braced himself and stepped forward. Desmond followed.

                  When they returned to the warehouse, it was on shaky feet and with gasping breaths. Their way out of Hell hadn’t been quite as smooth as their way in, and Malik was bleeding from multiple wounds. He braced himself against the outer wall of the warehouse and seemed to pull himself in, in, in. When he took his next breath, all his wounds were healed. He took a shaky breath and straightened.

                  “You okay, kid?” he asked.

                  Desmond nodded. He’d gotten stabbed, slashed, hit in Hell, too, but it didn’t show on his skin. He could still feel the pain lingering underneath in what he was starting suspect was his soul. He didn’t mention it.

                  “Alright,” Malik said and headed into the warehouse.

                  He walked straight to Altair, as if proximity was enough to heal any lingering aches. Desmond was sure he didn’t imagine a wing brushing gently against the demon’s arm.

                  He didn’t focus on it too long; Rebecca gave him an impulsive hug, and Shaun patted him on the shoulder in congratulations and relief. It wasn’t until he’d sat down near Lucy and begun explaining all that had happened that she really acknowledged her relief. He felt a gentle squeeze on his fingers, and he glanced up. She was speaking, focused on the rest of the team. He hid a smile and squeezed back.

                  “So now, we just have Malik left,” she summarized. “What do we need to do for that?”

                  “Holy ground, holy blood, solid devil’s trap?” Malik offered.

                  He glanced over to check with Altair and received a slight nod.

                  “The blood will be there when we arrive,” Altair added.

                  “And Lord knows there’s plenty of devil’s traps,” Malik muttered.

                  The rest of the team glanced between them, trying to fill in the silent blanks.  Altair and Malik didn’t seem to notice their confusion. Lucy took a deep breath and resolved her expression into neutral patience.

                  “And where is ‘there’?” she prompted. “You’ve only said it is in Syria.”

                  “Masyaf.”

                  Altair’s voice was reluctant and heavy, like it was pulled grudgingly from low in their chest. The word itself was meaningless to them, but they could all hear the solemn gravity in its three syllables.

                  “How are we going to make it ‘holy ground’?” Rebecca asked with air quotes around the last two words.

                  “It is,” Altair replied. “It has been consecrated by the death of an angel.”

                  Their gaze was averted as they said it, far more distant than a thousand-yard stare. Desmond swallowed down his fear.

                  “When do we leave?” he asked.

                  It seemed to pull Altair back to them. They took a quick survey of the room and shook their head.

                  “In the morning. Rest now,” they suggested.

                  The team packed up first before heading out of the room. By the time they’d all found their ways out of the main room, Altair had vanished. Malik glanced around before sighing and heading up.

                  He found them sitting on the edge of the roof. He paused a moment to enjoy the view, letting his vision slip a little. From this angle, Altair nearly melded into the night sky; their skin reflected and added to the constellations and dust ringing the sky. Malik breathed out, letting that familiar seize in his heart ease. It never had gone away; even after Altair exiled him, even after he went a millennium without seeing them, it remained.

                  “Are you going to stare all night?”

                  He grinned and continued over to the angel. Altair’s face was tilted towards the sky like a child under the sun, and he settled beside them to watch the stars as well. He remembered this, even if he remembered a much more close-up view. When a star-dusted wing curled tentatively around his shoulders, he smiled.

                  “Did it bring you peace?” Altair asked.

                  Taking a moment to breathe, Malik leaned back into the cool wing at his back. He wasn’t sure he remembered peace, not in any full way. Still, the way his breaths came easy in and out and the way he’d felt his heart steady as Kadar’s soul slipped to heaven – well, maybe it was only a different kind than he’d once had.

                  “It helped,” he confirmed. “I don’t know that we’re made for peace, really.”

                  Altair seemed to accept the answer. They watched the stars circle and burn, and for a time, Malik let his mind wander. He’d wanted, once, to hurt Altair. Whether it was simply nature of an angel and demon working side by side or because some part of him remembered them from before, he didn’t know. Now, he looked at them and ached to take away the heavy weight on their shoulders, the crinkle of their brow.

                  “Think the Big Guy meant for angels to love?” he asked.

                  Altair exhaled.

                  “We were created to love Him,” they replied.

                  Malik rolled his eyes.

                  “I don’t mean that,” he retorted. “I mean the human kind of love.”

                  Not the love that brought down mountains and razed empires; the love that left notes in children’s lunches and flowers on a loved one’s table. The simple love, the gentle love.

                  Altair was silent for a long while.

                  “I don’t know that He is capable of experiencing it,” they replied finally, “or that He knew of it before He saw it. It was a mistake.”

                  Their hand had fallen to the roof’s surface, and Malik fought the urge to take it in his own.

                  “But,” Altair continued after a slight pause, “it is His most beautiful mistake.”

                  Altair’s fingers were cold against Malik’s. He threaded his through them and over the stump where the fourth should’ve been. He willed his warmth back into the starry skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: So, clearly, I'm bastardizing the Hell trials from Supernatural. I'd apologize, but well, look at this AU. Also sappy angels? Always.


	36. Chapter Thirty-Five

                  Desmond woke to a crick in his neck and stiffness aching through his spine. He groaned and straightened from his slump. They’d fallen asleep talking, and, like dominoes, toppled over onto the futon. His mouth was thick with the staleness of sleep, and he grimaced as he tried to swallow it down. Lucy shifted and scrunched her eyes tighter before peeking them open.

                  “Do we have to get up?” she complained.

                  He breathed out a laugh.

                  “C’mon, today’s the day we save the world,” he teased.

                  She groaned.

                  Within five minutes, though, she had gotten up and headed to their makeshift kitchenette to start coffee for the team. Desmond trailed after her and dropped onto a bucket they’d repurposed as a chair. No one else was awake as far as they could tell, and Desmond kept his voice quiet. He didn’t want to break the morning stillness just yet.

                  “You think Malik and Altair got themselves sorted out last night?” he asked.

                  Lucy’s eyebrows rose over her chipped mug. It was one Rebecca had made in high school and taken to college: ‘accio coffee’ marked the side in black Sharpie.

                  “C’mon, they’ve had enough UST to fuel a thousand soap operas,” Desmond objected.

                  She laughed softly as she lowered the mug.

                  “I don’t think there’s any _sexual_ tension there,” she replied, carrying on before Desmond could object. “I think… there’s a lot of history we don’t know.”

                  Her lips twitched to the side at the understatement, and Desmond conceded that point. He fiddled with his own mug for a minute before taking a deep breath.

                  “What about you?” he asked. “Are you-?”

                  “Are we still using the same definition for ‘sorted out’?” she prompted with raised brows.

                  “No! No, I just – when you left after high school,” he explained, “you said you needed some answers. Altair said that you found them.”

                  He paused to recompose himself, fiddling with his mug. His hands fell still when he lifted his gaze to meet hers.

                  “How are you?” he asked.

                  She smiled. It was small and honest and so much older than twenty-one. Instead of replying immediately, she took a sip of coffee and let her gaze drift past Desmond around the warehouse. After a moment, her familiar scowl rested on him. He waited.

                  “I…am getting there,” she said. “I was in a really bad place for a long time, but I think I’m starting to heal.”

                  He wanted to ask, wanted to press what ‘bad place’ she meant, where she’d gone. He held his tongue. She’d given enough.

                  “Do I smell coffee?”

                  Desmond jumped. Rebecca shuffled in and straight towards the old coffee machine. After a moment, Shaun followed. Malik and Altair were slower to show; they didn’t appear until after the humans had finished their breakfasts of dry cereal and black coffee and packed up the last of the materials they’d need.

                  Then, they shifted the two backpacks they needed into the center of the floor and stood around them. Altair circled them, moving them in seemingly arbitrary increments. Once they were satisfied, they took their place in the last gap of the circle.

                  “Are you ready?” they asked.

                  “Wait,” Lucy objected.

                  She swallowed and rubbed her hands on her jeans.

                  “Before we do this, I just want to say thank you. To all of you, for everything,” she said. “We’ve all given up a lot to do this – school, family, work, maybe our lives. Whatever happens today, I am – I’m just really glad to know you – _all_ of you.”

                  She looked directly at Altair across the circle from her before ducking her head and stepping back between Desmond and Rebecca.

                  “Let’s do this.”

                  The sky split and black swallowed them whole. Stars streaked past. Gold, white, blue – it tore through them and _pulled_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Officially hit 50,010 words today! :D So glad to be done and can't wait to see what you guys think!


	37. Chapter Thirty-Six

                  Masyaf was cold. Snow spiraled down, tracing through the clouds their breath created. The humans, dressed only in jackets and jeans, shivered and chafed at their arms. Malik huffed out a breath, the hot air grey as his cigarette smoke.

                  “Couldn’t we reschedule to summer?” Desmond suggested.

                  “I second that,” Rebecca agreed.

                  The complaints faded as they began to move; the steep climb took to much air to leave any for talking. Lucy and Desmond led, shoulders bowed against the wind and snow, and Altair and Malik brought up the rear.

                  “Think this is gonna’ work?” Malik asked.

                  His voice was too low for the humans to hear, and Altair replied at a similar volume.

                  “It must,” they answered.

                  “Yeah,” Malik agreed noncommittally. “You can feel it, right?”

                  Altair nodded. There was a heady buzz running through the entire mountain, ancient magic combined with soul-scarring loss. It made their wings bristle and their hand itch for their sword.

                  “I don’t remember it having that much power,” Malik remarked.

                  He still remembered walking through those worn halls, could still point to the armory, the stable, the path to Jerusalem. All of those memories orbited another: one rife with grief and betrayal and pain. He pushed it away. He was done with that now.

                  “Malik, I – I have hurt you so badly and so many times. I have betrayed you,” Altair started, “and I know I cannot atone for what I have done. But – I am _so sorry._ ”

                  Chasmic fractures splintered in their eyes, and their wings were pressed tight to their back as if they were the only thing keeping them together. Malik breathed in and braced himself. He forced his voice to be steady.

                  “I do not accept your apology,” he replied.

                  Altair blinked, and the cracks started to fade. They were good at hiding them, at straightening their shoulders like a soldier and carrying on no matter the weight resting there.

                  “I understand,” Altair said.

                  Malik caught their arm as they started to turn away.

                  “No, you don’t,” he retorted. “You’re not who you were when Kadar died, when you betrayed me. You have changed. I don’t accept your apology because you’re not the same angel who betrayed us.”

                  He swallowed.

                  “Whatever happens in here, I wanted you to know,” he finished.

                  “Guys, come on! We could use some help up here,” Rebecca yelled.

                  They were at the top of the slope, where the megalithic gate overshadowed them. Malik sighed and followed Altair up the rest of the hill.

                  _Olani hoath ol_. _Niis adagita ol._

                  If it sounded like a prayer – well, it couldn’t hurt to have a little faith.

                  Lucy squinted at the door, half-blinded by the surrounding white, and Desmond chafed his arms beside her, his thin hoodie useless. His eyes were glowing the eerie gold of angels as he scoured the doors and tried to read the spells carved and bled into the wood and stone.

                  “I don’t understand any of it,” he admitted.

                  He blinked his eyes back to brown and gave her a futile shrug. The other two had finally reached them, and Lucy frowned, eyeing the two. There’d been something urgent in the way Malik clung to Altair and Altair gazed back. She hated when they kept secrets, could never persuade herself to trust anything that wasn’t human, but – but there had been something far needier than the end of the world in their eyes.

                  It didn’t stop her from wanting to know, but it did stop her from demanding an answer.

                  The angel read over the wood with a quick glance; their gold eyes flicked from right to left and back again. They exhaled and turned to them.

                  “After I open these gates, follow the ghost and move quickly,” they ordered.

                  Lucy nodded once. Adrenaline was starting into her bloodstream like a drip, and she could feel her weight shift to the balls of her feet. If it was going to be a fight, she would make a good show of it. Altair watched her before lifting a hand and laying it flat against the wood.

                  White-gold shot out. A translucent gold dome was briefly visible; it sparked up and over the citadel. Then, Altair vanished with a crack of wings, and the gates creaked open.

                  “Altaïr?” Desmond prompted.

                  The wind howled in reply. Lucy gestured for the team to continue. It didn’t stop her from fidgeting with the knife at her hip.

                  “I take it Altair just nipped off to freshen up before the party?” Shaun asked.

                  “They’ll be back,” Malik replied, firm. “The gate engages a powerful banishing spell, but it is temporary.”

                  He flexed his left hand as he spoke, curling and stretching his fingers to wake them back up. Desmond frowned and turned back to watch where he stepped on the old stone floors. There were nicks and scratches all along them and cobwebs in the upper reaches of the walls. Desmond could nearly hear the steps of the hundreds of men and women who once walked here. Hunters, Assassins – all fight a battle that still wasn’t won. _Was it worth it?_ he wanted to ask. _Did you give your lives for something you believed in?_ He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer, the truth long-dead and lost.

                  White flickered in the corner of his eye, and his hand shot out for Lucy’s arm. She had already stopped though, and unsheathed her knife. The figure before them had a familiar stature and grace, though the outfit was new. There was something unreal about it, a slight blur to the long tails and red sash as if it had been painted into place.

                  “Altair?” Desmond asked.

                  The figure said nothing. It turned and walked on silent feet down the hallway adjacent to theirs. Desmond followed immediately with Lucy close on his tail.

                  “Guys? Lucy! Desmond!” Rebecca yelled.

                  “This way!” Desmond called over his shoulder.

                  Shaun muttered something vaguely profane, but Desmond was too focused on following the ephemeral figure before them.

                  “Altair, why-” Desmond started.

                  Malik’s hand on his arm cut him off. The demon was frowning, worry in his blue-grey eyes.

                  “I don’t think that’s the Altair you know, Desmond,” he warned.

                  “What?” Desmond demanded.

                  He twisted to to face Malik, but the demon shook his head.

                  “That banishing spell is still in effect, I can feel it. It separates the angel from the vessel,” he explained, “and Altair’s vessel died here a long time ago.”

                  Desmond’s eyebrows climbed upwards.

                  “You mean we’re following their ghost?” he hissed.

                  The figure had stopped. It turned just slightly to watch them, and Malik swallowed.

                  “Yeah,” he said. “I think that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

                  Desmond turned back to the wraith. There were similarities there, in the loose hands and patient wait, but this figure’s shoulders were unbowed from the weight of wings or millennia, and its weight was forward as if it was only waiting for a reason to fight. Desmond followed more cautiously.

                  “Does someone want to tell us what the hell is going on?” Shaun whispered.

                  “Altair’s vessel still resides here,” Malik explained as he started walking again. “It seems some fragment of his soul does, too, and that’s it.”

                  “Lovely,” Shaun muttered after a long silence.

                  They’d slowed as the hallway grew darker. The ghost didn’t seem to mind the lack of light, though it had to have slowed down as well. It remained exactly the same distance ahead.

                  Until, finally, it stopped.

                  “Whoa!” Rebecca yelped as she stumbled into Desmond’s back. “Little warning next time?”

                  “Sorry,” he replied absently.

                  The figure was just standing there in front of the rock face. It didn’t move. Desmond finally stepped forward, reaching out to touch the figure’s shoulder.

                  “Altair? I don’t know if you can understand English, but we really need to find this key,” he started.

                  Before his hand could touch the ghost, it turned. Even with a hood shadowing its face, Desmond could see the exasperation writ there as plain as a spotlight.

                  “I am the vessel of the archangel,” the ghost retorted. “I can _understand_ you perfectly well.”

                  Its voice was nothing like Altair’s. It was haughty and thick with an accent Desmond couldn’t quite place.

                  “Oh,” he managed. “Sorry?”

                  The ghost didn’t reply. It turned back to the wall, and Desmond prepared to settle in for a long wait. This time, though, it lifted its left hand and pressed it flat against the rock as Altair had half an hour earlier. The gold that flashed out crackled along the craggy rock, flashing feathered shadows across the hall and their faces. Desmond blinked away the spots dancing in front of his eyes. The wall was creaking, swinging open. The ghost had shifted, shoulders rolling forward just-so. A rush of relief swept through Desmond.

                  “Altaïr?” he asked.

                  Altaïr turned towards him, gold eyes just barely visible under the shadow of the peaked hood.

                  “Oh thank god,” Desmond breathed out. “Your vessel’s kind of a jerk, you know.”

                  There was a shift of movement under the white robes that might have been a shrug, but Altaïr didn’t reply to that.

                  “You need to hurry,” they said instead. “Now.”

                  Lucy nodded for Desmond, walked straight into the chamber beyond the rock door. Desmond followed, shooting a quick glance at the angel before hurrying after Lucy. Once the rest of them were in, Altaïr stepped inside and the wall swung shut with a damning _thud._ Desmond swallowed at the sound, sharing a quick glance with the other three. Whatever happened now, they were locked in.


	38. Chapter Thirty-Seven

                  They worked quickly, efficiently. The computers went in a semicircle that was painfully close to the skeleton enthroned in the center of the room, and Rebecca pulled up her monitoring system. They didn’t want any surprises. While she and Shaun worked on that, Desmond and Lucy started scouring the floor for a devil’s trap. They’d brought UV lights on Altair’s suggestion, and the floor glowed purple with myriad sigils and wards. Malik and Altair circled them all, supernatural watch-dogs brandishing silver swords. It was on their third circuit that Desmond finally relented.

                  “Hey, what’s with Mr. Bones over there?” he asked with a pointed look at the robe-laden skeleton.

                  Malik turned, studied the corpse briefly, and turned back to Altair with raised eyebrows.

                  “He entombed himself in his own library?” he demanded. “What the hell’d you do to him?”

                  Altair had stiffened and paused in the middle of tracing a new sigil on the wall. It fell in with the dozen others they and Malik had written, strange loops of blood that somehow, supposedly, would protect them. There was a small spot they both avoided: a gold-glowing oval on the wall. The sigils didn’t near it, and Altair seemed to step purposefully around it.

                  “He believed it would prevent others from falling prey to the piece of Eden,” they explained.

                  _‘Falling prey’?_ Desmond eyed the skeleton warily before epiphany struck.

                  “Wait, that’s your vessel?” he demanded.

                  The robes were different than those Altaïr wore now; darker and somehow heavier, as if the years had been woven into the very threads.

                  “It was,” Altaïr affirmed.

                  They didn’t offer any more, and Desmond didn’t press. Altair kept some secrets that Desmond didn’t feel he needed to know.

                  “Gotcha!” Lucy exclaimed.

                  There, illuminated by the purple light, was a pentagram circled in blood. Malik exhaled, eyeing the thing with quiet trepidation. A wing reached out, star-speckled feathers brushing against his arm. He glanced over to find Altair watching with a steady gaze.

_You do not have to do this._

                  The words were a balm, a salve of camphor and mint against raw wounds. It had been so long since Altair spoke to him like this, and it felt like homecoming to hear them.

_I know._

                  He stepped forward but paused before Lucy. He flipped over his hand, revealing a knife with a jagged edge.

                  “You’re going to want this,” he warned.

                  Then he stepped into the circle and folded his legs beneath him. Desmond hesitated, reaching for the first syringe.

                  “I’m sorry,” he said and sank the needle into Malik’s vein.

                  His eyes bled black, tendons popping along his arms and neck. Lucy shifted her grip on the knife, but Malik didn’t fight it. He simply gritted his teeth and held himself rigid as a wire. Desmond exhaled and settled in to wait for the next hour to pass.

                  The day dragged. Malik accepted each injection, but his skin was slick with sweat and face strained. Blood trickled out of his fists. Altair continued to pace. Lucy wandered off, pausing in front of the gold section of wall.

                  “So why don’t we just grab the key and go?” she asked. “I mean, we have an archangel. Isn’t that enough?”

                  They were nearing nightfall, long past when they had first chased the ghost down into this cavernous library. Malik had slumped forward with tension still running live along his bowed spine. All was clear on Rebecca’s programs, and Shaun had started to doze off against her shoulder.

                  “I can’t,” the angel said.

                  Desmond twisted around in surprise. He’d given Malik the last injection already; there were only fifteen minutes till it was over.

                  “The lock holds a banishing sigil within it,” Altair explained. “If I touch it, it will banish all angels present from this plane, and the code will rewrite itself.”

                  Rebecca’s eyebrows shot up while Lucy stared. Desmond could feel himself mirroring their expressions.

                  “That seems a little intense,” Rebecca remarked.

                  Altair hesitated before nodding slightly.

                  “My vessel sought to ensure I would never use it again,” they replied.

                  Something tingled on the back of Desmond’s shoulders, like a premonition or warning not to ask the question on his tongue. He did anyway.

                  “Why?”

                  “Because Big Brother made a big mistake,” a sweet, familiar voice crooned.

                  Desmond stiffened. He couldn’t remove his gaze from Altair even as something pulled at his attention. The angel had tensed as well until the fingers around their sword were white with tension. _No. No no no not yet._

                  “A big ol’ mistake that they’ll never forgive themselves for,” Lucifer continued. “So they’re down here doing penance.”

                  Their voice came from the opposite side of the chamber, but it was moving as if they were strolling along the perimeter. There was laughter in the voice, cruel and mocking like they were kicking a dog and enjoying the whimpers.

                  “Isn’t that right, Altair?” they taunted. “Isn’t that why you’re down here playing house with these naked little monkeys? You’re going to make yourself the last sacrifice, the big old martyr for a righteous cause – and then, maybe, _maybe_ you won’t feel so damn guilty.”

                  _They’re the devil, they lie._ But Desmond could remember his dream and Malik’s words, and Altair’s face was painfully blank. Desmond’s stomach did a funny twist and flip like a diver from a board, and he swallowed.

                  “You don’t deserve that, Altair,” Lucifer continued, their voice shifting into a honey-sweet lure. “You were trying to save your little brother. You were only doing what any good brother would do.”

                  Desmond finally, slowly, turned around. Lucifer wore the same vessel as last time, but they were fading. Their cheeks were gaunt and skin sweat-slick. Even so, they were… _pretty_ in a way that Desmond couldn’t quite grasp. Their vessel’s high cheekbones and cat-like blue eyes were only part of it; there was something else, something rolling just under the skin that sang and whispered like a siren’s lure.

                  “Kadar…?”

                  Malik had straightened slightly, but his eyes were unfocused. Lucifer spared him a brief glance and a sharp-edged smile.

                  “You can even keep your pet, with all his patchy memories and mindless devotion,” they purred. “He’s always been a good servant – _so obedient._ ”

                  Altair stiffened and a muscle twitched in the back of their jaw. Lucifer spread their hands in placation.

                  “Come now, Altair, wouldn’t you like to end his suffering?” they suggested. “You can stop all that confusion and just let him be with you. He was always happiest at your side. Don’t you want him to be happy again? To be at peace again?”

                  “Kadar – why-?” Malik mumbled.

                  He’d slumped to the side but was still focused on Lucifer. Desmond glanced down at his watch: ten more minutes.

                  Lucifer’s lips tightened, but they turned and crouched before Malik with an ingratiating smile and innocent blue eyes. When they spoke, it was as if a young boy had taken over their body.

                  “All is well, brother,” they soothed. “It will be over soon, I promise. Just rest. I will take care of you.”

                  Malik swayed and a drowsy smile pulled at his lips. Altair’s wings had arched up like a great black shield and their jaw clenched. Lucifer straightened and turned back to them with an easy smile.

                  “Look at that, brother,” they purred. “Just imagine: he can even have his little brother back. You’ll never have to worry about his forgiveness, because he will never have to know. He’ll be-”

                  “Damned,” a new voice finished.

                  _What the hell._ The newcomer looked nothing like either Altair or Lucifer, but it was impossible to not know who they were. Michael had all twelve wings folded over their back and blond hair gleamed in gentle curls. With the sword in their hand, they looked like every painting Desmond had ever seen of them, and he felt a shiver crawl under his skin.

                  “Michael!” Lucifer jeered. “What a delightful surprise. I’d almost hoped you wouldn’t be able to make it to our little family reunion.”

                  “If you align with Lucifer you will damn Malik to Hell for eternity,” Michael warned. “He will be trapped there until Father wipes this forsaken mess from the universe – and then he will die.”

                  Desmond shot a glance at Lucy, but her eyes were flicking from angel to angel. Shaun had woken, and he and Rebecca were trapped between the triangle of celestial brothers and Malik’s quivering form. Desmond felt a tap on his shoulder. When he glanced up, Lucy nodded slightly towards Malik and looked down at Desmond’s watch. He shifted his hands, spreading his fingers on his thighs. _4 – 5._

                  “-just want to bring Daddy home-”

                  “I am doing what is right!”

                  _Desmond, stay put._

He flinched. Altair hadn’t even glanced his way, but their wings had lifted into an impressive array and their shoulders squared as if walking into a fight. He’d seen Altair-the-Archangel once or twice before, and he still remembered Altair-the-Soldier from so many years ago. He’d never seen them together. With the white robes, silver blades, and broad wings, they looked like death incarnate. They looked like a pure and ageless wrath.

                  Desmond shivered, week-old words ringing in his ears. _You must stop Altair._ It hadn’t seemed that difficult then, before Altair stepped out of their vessel and into themselves. Now, it seemed like stopping a hurricane, a forest fire, a force of nature that could not, would not be stopped.

                  “Our Father’s word is set in stone,” Altaïr started.

                  Their tone was level and final, an execution order in progress. It rang against the stones like sword strikes, like tolling bells.

                  “His commandments have been passed down for eons,” Altair continued.

                  “He has been gone for eons!” Lucifer objected. “You cannot believe us beholden to an absent father who ran away because He couldn’t handle the responsibility!”

                  Altair’s gaze was heavy and cold as it fell on Lucifer. Michael’s wings lifted, smug success in the curl of their lips.

                   “That it is ancient, that it is tradition,” Altaïr continued, “does not make it just.”

                  Smugness morphed into confusion as Michael whirled around. Now, Lucifer smirked. Desmond tore his gaze away towards his watch. Thirty seconds.

                  “How dare you!” Michael snarled. “I thought you had come to your senses, but you are stilled deluded. You are _weak_.”

                  “Oh carry on, brother,” Lucifer chuckled. “Win them over that way why don’t you.”

                  In his periphery, Desmond could see Malik shift. The demon – _human? Was he cured?_ -  didn’t sit up fully, but Desmond could see him tune into the argument around him; his back stiffened and his shoulders relaxed. Blue-grey eyes focused on Altair.

                  “You are both selfish, greedy, and cruel,” Altair said.

                  Their voice had hardened into steel blade with anger whetting the edge.

                  “You do not deserve the gifts you have been given,” they continued, “and you do not deserve to determine the world’s fate.”

                  The other two bristled; Michael’s wings fanned out and Lucifer’s hands slid from their coat pockets. Altair’s face was flat and hard, and Desmond couldn’t find forgiveness there no matter how hard he looked. Malik’s hand rolled palm-up on the floor, and for a fraction of a breath, Altair met his gaze.

                  A lunge, a scream, a flare of white that ended the world.

                  Silence.


	39. Chapter Thirty-Eight

                  Desmond had thought a lot about the end of the world. He’d watched the apocalyptic movies, debated whether or not he’d survive in the event of zombies. He’d planned for Revelations once Lucifer showed up, and he’d tried to determine whether he’d end up in heaven, hell, or somewhere in between. He’d planned for fire, for ice, for starvation and desperation.

                  He’d planned for everything that could have happened – except what did. In the end, there was no fiery rain. There was no snowmageddon or meteor or army of the undead. There was only this:

                  Ringing silence, bells chiming in his ears.

                  Crawling across the floor with an arm pressed to his stomach.

                  Silent sobbing and hands clutching a gaping gut wound.

                  Stumbling, tripping, falling down a mountainside.

                  They left the computers still running and the bodies unburied; they were too shell-shocked to gather more than each other. Lucy leaned on Rebecca, Desmond on Shaun. They tripped over rocks, stubbed their toes on pebbles. They kept moving forward.

                  Shaun was rambling, mumbling meaningless platitudes in an increasingly frantic tone. Rebecca didn’t have the energy to tell him to stop.

                  Just before the base of the mountain, they stumbled into a tall man with kind brown eyes and a nearby house. They didn’t question why he spoke and understood English in the far edge of Syria; it didn’t occur to them to ask. They followed him into a small home and collapsed into the provided chairs while he bustled about the kitchen. For a long while, the only noise was the clatter of cups and click of a stove.

                  The house was tidy but cozy; photos of two parents and four sons leaned up against brightly patterned vases and oddly-shaped rocks. A sense of ease had seemed to settle over them as they crossed the threshold, as if the end of the world was only a small thing and it, too, would pass. It only grew as they sat there, slipping like honey into their limbs and soothing their piano string nerves.

                  “We need – is there a hospital? Nearby?” Rebecca finally asked.

                  Her voice was halting and drowsy; it took so much effort to disturb the peace here. The man turned with four cups of tea balanced in his hands. He sat one in front of each of them and fetched his own before sitting as well. Desmond and Lucy wavered in their chairs, hovering on the edges of consciousness. They didn’t notice their cups.

                  “That will not be necessary,” the man replied.

                  “Is that-?” Desmond mumbled as he lurched towards the far wall.

                  There was a red sash draped along the table there, and the peak of something silver and sharp was visible behind picture frames and knickknacks. The man smiled.

                  “A gift from an old friend,” he answered. “I believe you know them.”

                  Rebecca’s eyes widened. She turned towards the angel, but they were already kneeling before Lucy. She didn’t seem to notice; they received only a hazy acknowledgment. The blood was a wide swath now, a scarlet puddle staining her shirt and hand. The angel gently pulled her hand away.

                  They pressed their hand to the place hers had been, and gold light haloed them. Shadows of wings appeared briefly, softer and finer-edged than any they had seen before. Lucy gasped and jerked upright. The red had vanished, and her shirt was smooth and unblemished once more. She grasped at the fabric as if she would find the missing wound there. The angel smiled and moved on to Desmond. This time, the light flashed bright before disappearing into Desmond’s scorched forearm. It left spiraling black marks behind, an instantaneous tattoo.

                  “I’m afraid that’s the best I can do,” they admitted. “That spell was very powerful.”

                  “You knew Altair?” Lucy demanded.

                  The angel nodded, gathering themselves to stand.

                  “Not as well as Malik does, of course,” they replied, “but then, no one does.”

                  “What happened?” Desmond burst out. “They just – they all just vanished.”

                  The angel hesitated before settling into a chair that hadn’t been there before. Their expression was thoughtful and tinged with sadness, like they knew far more than any one person should have to.

                  “There is a cage, deep in the furthest pit of Hell,” they started. “It was made by God Himself, to bind Lucifer after the Fall. It is nearly impossible to open once locked and nearly impossible to lock once opened. It would take a great deal of grace to seal it once more.”

                  They paused, taking a sip of tea.

                  “Were I a wagering man – which angels as a rule are not,” they continued, “I would guess that cage has two new occupants and two new guards.”

                  Desmond flinched.

                  “But – how?” Shaun asked. “And how did Malik grow wings all of a sudden?”

                  He spoke uncertainly, as if he wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined it. The angel merely nodded.

                  “So they did it,” they murmured to themselves before explaining, “Once he was cured of being a demon, Malik was human. Altair must have returned his grace.”

                  “Oh,” Desmond breathed, “ _that’s_ what the necklace was.”

                  The angel inclined their head.

                  “Altair has held onto it for centuries,” they confirmed.

                  “So, how’d they get to this cage?” Lucy pressed. “Altair just said the spell banished angels, not that it sent them to Hell.”

                  She was frowning, tea ignored beside her.

                  “It is a banishing spell,” the angel agreed, “but that merely means the angels affected by it are sent from this plane. If they are aware of it and have enough will, they can control where it sends them. Between Malik and Altair – there is a lot of will.”

                  Desmond’s jaw ached from clenching it so hard, but it had done little to prevent the tears pricking at his eyes. _One job: stop Altair_ , he thought bitterly.

                  “So, I failed,” he muttered.

                  The angel turned to him with a steady, stern gaze. It was familiar: he’d seen it from nearly every teacher he’d had in high school and from Altair nearly once a week.

                  “Altair and Malik are two of the strongest angels I have ever met,” they said. “They have persevered in places no one should be able to survive. Now? Now, they are together, the world spins on, and you are safe. I can think of few things that would please Altair more. When they have secured the cage, they will be able to do as they wish, and I imagine Eden will welcome them when the time comes.”

                  Desmond swallowed and averted his gaze. The angel’s words rang with firm truth, but he couldn’t quite stifle the guilt that sat sickly in his gut. Something rang in his memory: a conversation in the rafters, a conversation in the middle of the night; a home that was lost, a single word to sum up heaven. He felt the same kind of helplessness now.

                  The angel’s expression softened slightly, though the sadness lingered; it was by their eyes, in the laughter lines stretching out from their corners.

                  “Finish up your tea,” they prompted. “You’ll want it before I send you home.”

                  They did as told. The peppery flavor pricked their tongues but it warmed as they drank it, spreading a gentle heat through their chests and down their limbs. The fatigue seemed to melt away, shooed out by the herbs and spices of the strange tea. They finished their cups one by one; Desmond was the last to set his down.

                  “What happens to their bodies?” Lucy asked. “Their vessels – they’re still up there.”

                  The angel’s expression shifted again into a mild frown. They settled their tea cup in one hand and traced the lip of it with a finger.

                  “I think it is time they were laid to rest,” they finally answered, meeting her gaze. “Don’t you?”               

                  They stood then, gracefully unfolding themselves from their chair. Desmond couldn’t quite parse the expression on their face; it was a little ironic and a little sad and a little hopeful.

                  “If you do see them again,” they said, “tell them Rauf says hello. And that they’re both absolute novices.”

                  They didn’t get a chance to respond. Instead, the angel reached out and rested broad hands on the tops of Lucy and Desmond’s heads and then –

                  They stumbled, landing on shaky legs. The concrete floor was hard and steady beneath them but the rest of the world seemed to sway and ripple around them like it couldn’t decided whether it was real or not.

                  “What the hell,” Shaun mumbled.

                  He leaned on Rebecca, a little woozy. The warehouse was just as they’d left it: the Animus was still packed away and evening light filtered hazily through the high windows. Desmond exhaled, staring through the far wall. It had been a day, a decade, a lifetime, since he’d stood here. A month and a half ago, he’d been worried about midterms and his work schedule. Now, he couldn’t even find it in himself to wonder whether he’d failed all his classes. It was too much; it flooded over him till he couldn’t see through the waves.

                  A brush against his hand brought him back, and he glanced down to see Lucy’s fingers threading through his. They curled around his and gave a gentle squeeze.

                  “Now what?” he asked.

                  Her head was tilted, and her brow furrowed thoughtfully.

                  “Now,” she repeated. “Now, we live.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw, how cliché.


	40. Epilogue

                  He didn’t dream after the end of the world.  There were no dreams of prophecies, of fire or angels or Hell. There were no dreams of fantasies, of surrealist places and impossible plots. There weren’t dreams about the video game they created to take angels and Assassins and the end of the world and make it comprehensible, entertaining. There were no divine messages to help him explain the strange new tattoo encircling his arm.

                  There were no dreams for nine years.

                  And then, while he dozed on Lucy’s shoulder in a train rocketing across France, there was one. It was simply –

                  stars. Hundreds of trillions of stars – collapsing and blossoming and fanning across an infinite void. Joy and peace swirled into something painfully tight in his chest. There were wounds there, but they would heal. They had the chance to heal. Eternity spread out before him like the glossy surface of a never-ending ocean, the horizon nonexistent. Laughter and a familiar voice he hadn’t heard in a decade.

                  _Terrible. Beautiful. Ineffable._

                  Desmond smiled in his sleep and nestled a little closer to Lucy. Her own lips twitched upwards, and she curled her fingers into his before settling back into her seat. The world rushed by, a blur of green heading into the unknown future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap!
> 
> Huge thank you to everyone who hung in there till the end - whether you started with For Heirs of Salvation, the first draft of WSH, or just started with this second one! I really appreciate all your comments, kudos and bookmarks, and it means the world to me that y'all care enough to stick through this entire novel (aah!). 
> 
> Working on revisions and watching "Dominion" has gotten me entirely back in the mood for angel bros and this entire verse, so keep an eye out for scribbles and sketches coming up.
> 
> I'm on tumblr at curiosity-killed if you ever want to chat, fangirl, or just say hi.
> 
> Much love y'all! Thanks for the adventure :)


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